The Medium Reviews

The Medium is Bloober Team's most ambitious game in terms of scope and scale. It successfully leverages fixed camera angles and strong sound design to create a horror experience that's unashamedly nostalgic. Despite its successes, the game fails to capitalise on its unique dual reality mechanic and ultimately feels too similar to the studio's prior efforts in Blair Witch and Observer.

“The Medium is a chilling tone piece that's bogged down by retro influence and a protagonist that can't stop oversharing.”

One of the most impressive aspects of The Medium when it released on Xbox and PC was the game's ability to depict both the human and Spirit worlds simultaneously for stretches of the game in great detail. The PS5 version of the game maintains the high graphical quality of the original release, with both the gloomy interiors of the Niwa Hotel and the strange, flesh-like environments of the Spirit world inspired by surrealist Polish artist Zdzisław Beksiński being pretty to look at in their own respective ways. The framerate remains solid throughout the game, but there are occasional hitches and stutters when new textures are loading into the environments. While load times are incredibly fast when transitioning between the two worlds, loading into The Medium from the main screen/after dying takes longer than games like Spider-Man: Miles Morales, which is a bit odd considering the power of the PS5's SSD.

The Medium PS5 Review - The Medium is an intriguing horror game with a novel dual reality mechanic, but it can fall into many of the same traps that most other horror games do.

The Medium is stuck between two types of video games. It seems like a throwback to classic, claustrophobic horror titles such as Silent Hill and Resident Evil, but it also feels like a more modern non-combat, narrative-focused scary game. The end result is a game that feels middle of the road. This is disappointing, because it contains some great ideas and has a strong second half. But too much of the game buries these bright spots under stretches of boredom.

It's been a few months yet The Medium is finally available for PlayStation 5 and it's quite an intriguing horror game so let's get to it.

Bloober Team has summoned a rich atmosphere, under all that writing, and one or two sequences offer glimpses of a purer game.

You better have to choose if it’s worth spending your spare cash, because it might not be the game for you and it might be for others.

The good in this game is forced to carry you through the bad, which in some ways, is the gameplay itself, where a lack of challenging puzzles, a shallow yet innovative dual reality mechanic, and an over reliance on exposition pull you out of the detailed and interesting story Bloober are trying to tell.

I keep constantly rooting for Bloober Team’s success, even though their career has been mostly summarised as a collection of projects that, for the most part, have failed to hit their full potential. Blair Witch and Layers of Fear havd some interesting ideas, but suffered from poor execution. Meanwhile, Observer, a game that wasn’t even supposed to be a survival horror, ended up being scarier and more unsettling than their proper horror titles. The Medium is Bloober’s latest horror game...

My favorite part of The Medium ended up being its “semi-fixed cameras,” which blend old and new design philosophies in a way that seems genuinely palatable in 2021. That’s the real achievement here. I can easily picture a more well-rounded sequel happening, and for what it’s worth, I hope it does.

An engaging story set in a unique setting and interesting gameplay mechanic, only for the game to be literally slowed down with framerate issues.

Much like Bloober Team’s previous horror efforts, The Medium features an interesting story in a compelling and creepy world but is let down by often boring and dragged-out gameplay sequences.

Bloober Team does well to keep things taut all the way to the end, but there's a frustrating amount of untapped potential beneath its gameplay gimmicks and art direction.

Coming into The Medium, developer Bloober Team has a lot to prove. They’ve been refining their horror craft over the last few years, with titles such as Layers of Fear, Observer and Blair Witch delivering on their own brand of psychological horror that constantly reminded us in those worlds that things are never exactly as they seem. On top of the pressure to continue improving, this new title is one of the very first Xbox Series X/S console exclusives, not available on previous generations...

Instead of high-tech thrills and survival horror chills, this disappointingly mundane thriller struggles to impress with a muddled narrative and unengaging gameplay.

The Medium has a strong, unique premise, and tells a complex story very coherently - but if you're looking for scares, this probably isn't the horror game for you.

The Medium presents intelligent horror and innovative gameplay inspired by Silent Hill, but far overstays its welcome and fails to provide closure. The split screen mechanics work wonders for new kinds of puzzles, but a myriad of technical issues hinder immersion.

While you might have hoped for a bigger blockbuster to take that honour, The Medium nonetheless aims to be a proper next-gen horror title from Polish developer Bloober Team, who have spent recent years carving out a niche in psychological horror games like Layers of Fear and Blair Witch.

Still, The Medium is the first game that really feels like it needs to be on a next-gen system, which is something this new console generation still sorely needs. The Medium ultimately stumbles because of its weak script, but it’s worth loading up as an early-gen novelty if you have Xbox Game Pass and want to see what the next-gen fuss is all about.

Despite its linearity, I’d argue that The Medium is a genuinely chilling ghost story that’s sure to leave a lasting impression. The splitscreen effects make for quite a few memorable moments, and there’s no denying the growing sense of accomplishment as you solve difficult puzzles and make your way through the cursed resort. It may not be on the same level as some of its inspirations, but I’d definitely recommend The Medium to any fan of classic survival horror.

Although it has demanding system requirements, The Medium is still a marvelous offering when it comes to its visuals and gameplay. Its locations will haunt and horrify you, and its dual-reality system will provide refreshing ways to complete your objectives. Unfortunately, it also suffers from a few technical hiccups, and its bizarrely abrupt conclusion leaves a lot to be desired.

Layers of Fear showed early promise, Blair Witch demonstrated that Bloober could resurrect a dormant movie license to great effect, and Observer saw the studio successfully turn its hand to cyberpunk horror. The Medium is a similarly excellent game, serving as further proof of the developer's horror expertise and its credentials as an exciting creative outfit.

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The ability to interact with two separate instances of a game world simultaneously, dubbed the Dual-Reality System, is The Medium‘s unique gimmick, which sets it apart from its horror contemporaries. This gameplay mechanic was the primary aspect of the game that was highlighted pre-release, but the big question was whether or not this would enrich its narrative or if it would be little more than fluff.

Were it a shorter, tighter experience that came in, showed off its impressive technical accomplishments, and got out, I’d be much more impressed by everything The Medium has to offer. Instead, a drawn-out, confused narrative and largely boring gameplay left this game feeling like a slog. The disconnect between its presentation and everything else is so painfully stark that I can’t help but be disappointed by the first major Xbox exclusive of the year.

Bloober Team has long established itself as a purveyor of innovative and frightening horror experiences, but it will be tough to outdo this one. The Medium is a terrifying and disturbing look into the darkest recesses of human behavior, wrapped in an immersive, atmospheric, and beautiful looking game world.

Bloober Team goes back to the classics for possibly its best effort yet.

The Medium isn’t a bad game by any stretch of the imagination – it’s just nothing special. The dual world mechanic doesn’t offer much that’s genuinely new or interesting, the next-gen visuals are let down by poor animation, and the controls are a bit clunky. It’s also simply not scary. The saving grace is that the world that’s been created here is interesting, allowing for a story that keeps you wondering what the next revelation will be throughout its eight-or-so hour running time. Still, there’s good groundwork here if Bloober Team does ever deliver a sequel – hopefully with better facial animation, more grotesque enemies roaming its environments, and an actual combat system.

The Medium is a terrifying but compelling exploration of duality that uses the horror of personal trauma to craft a memorable tale.

The Medium is a decent horror game that has some really good ideas, but ultimately fails to live up to its potential.

Third-person horror with fixed camera angles still has lots of life in it. (And death.)

What lies beyond? It’s a question that’s dominated the human psyche since the dawn of consciousness. What beyond that ridge? That horizon? Or the ultimate, most unanswerable question of all: what lies beyond this mortal plane? What happens when we pass on?

Despite the wrong steps, there is good in The Medium. If you want a decent horror story to wade through, which offers telltale signs of the classics we’ve come to know and love, then Bloober Team’s latest is just that. There are mistakes along the way, and some things could have been done better, but ultimately The Medium feels like a game that meets you in the middle, straddling the line between mediocre and really good.

The Medium will scratch the horror itch for some for a while but fails to live up to its potential in a number of significant ways.

One could argue that outside of its creative double-world approach, The Medium isn't the sort of revolutionary horror game that one might hope for from the start of a new generation in gaming. But you know what? It doesn't need to be revolutionary. It just needs to be spooky, have fun gameplay and tell an entertaining story, and Bloober Team succeeds on all of those fronts. Of course, it helps that it easily has what one can say will be some of the year's best visuals, as well as an eerie soundtrack featuring the likes of Akira Yamaoka. The Medium is a quick yet astonishing trip through a pair of engrossing worlds where practically every element comes together nicely, and it's all worth taking some looks at.

As a narrative focused experience, The Medium generally impresses. In terms of gameplay, it often just feels too easy and lacking in depth. But even with criticisms towards the latter, if you're looking to embrace a horror game for one dark night or two, The Medium is a worthy choice. It's clearly the vision of a team who loved the concept and wanted to take players on a narrative driven adventure, filled with dark themes and systems such as the dual-reality mechanic that feel integral to the story. If you can accept The Medium for the experience that it is, you're in for a good time, but dial back your expectations for the actual gameplay.

That being said, The Medium isn't perfect. Its ideas aren't realized to their full potential, but it's a step in an exciting new direction. Its pacing stumbles in the middle, but its enticing narrative drives you through. Its dual-reality mechanic goes far enough to keep its slowest gameplay moments interesting, and paired with a fantastic narrative and exceptionally eerie atmosphere, it's an easy recommendation for fans of Bloober Team's work in the past and the horror genre in general.

The Medium is a poor game that is rife with bugs, bad ideas, and some nice things to look at.

The Medium is a short game that does not offer much in terms of replay value. Normally this would be a serious problem, but The Medium is available through Xbox Game Pass, and so its short length isn't nearly as pressing of an issue. It's short but mostly sweet, and will definitely appeal to fans of classic survival-horror games. It's easily Bloober Team's best game yet and something Xbox Series X owners should check out as soon as they can.

Overall, The Medium is a great game, when it comes to the actual nuts and bolts the game is superb. It’s scary, it’s visceral, and it showcases how Bloober Team understands horror and how to execute concepts unrestricted by location. That said, its story is less than stellar, but at 8-10 hours of gameplay, with its fantastic cinematics, it’s a hurdle you can get over.

With a fairly direct narrative, this might not be the sort of game that you’ll head back to replay often but this is an experience worth picking up. Bloober Team’s latest story manages to be both unsettling and engaging in equal measure. The presentation is fantastic, the characterization and voice acting is great, and the nods to other horror tropes is knowing rather than sloppy. This team from Krakow clearly know their chosen genre inside out and while it might be hard to fully discuss...

With creepy puzzle moments throughout, The Medium pulls off a dual-reality puzzler with precision. The game looks magnificent, with impressive lighting and shadows courtesy of RTX, though the Xbox Series X version suffers from occasional stutters and hitches, as well as level of detail pops. More classic dread than jump scares, it delivers on its promise of horror served two ways, making it unique and a must-have for horror fans, even if it's a little lighter fare.

As you get deeper into Niwa, the dark story surrounding it is slowly revealed. It has some pretty heavy moments and touches on serious issues, with some morally gray moments where I wasn’t sure if I should be rooting for anyone in the story’s past. At the same time, the mystery kept me guessing about certain characters and revelations, and I couldn’t wait to learn the truth. It definitely takes some unexpected turns–both in the story and gameplay. The music also does an excellent job of building the atmosphere through a combination of slower, ominous tracks and more powerful songs. The Medium gave me a compelling story I wanted to see through to the end, a delightfully macabre and bizarre alternate world, and some truly fantastic ideas even if they aren’t all used to their full potential.

The Medium is less survival-horror and more adventure-horror like the studio's past games, but so long as Bloober Team is still refining this style, the team is clearly getting better.

The Medium uses a unique reality-shifting ability to bring a new dimension to some tried-and-tested genre puzzle-solving mechanics. It presents an intriguing mystery to unravel and adds a tangible sense of urgency to your investigations by placing a truly memorable villain hot on your heels. It isn’t able to play with perspective as effectively as some of Bloober Team’s other work, but it’s brilliantly paced and palpably tense. An absorbing and nerve-racking journey from the shriek of its first jump scare to its very last gasp, The Medium delivers a psychological horror adventure that’s all thriller and no filler.