The puzzles make some interesting use of both worlds, but none of them stand out as particularly clever, making the whole concept feel underutilized. She can split herself up and examine specters of people’s pasts by channeling objects, too, which opens up the first few areas of the resort to some mildly interesting puzzles in which you need to move the spirit-world Marianne through an area impassable to her in the physical world, then flip a switch or use her spirit-world energy to turn on a fuse box to power an elevator. It’s here that The Medium begins to flex its central hook: Marianne can manifest herself in both the physical and spiritual worlds, which are largely the same, but in key ways are asymmetrical. As you explore the resort, you see chalk drawings in the parking lot, then notes written in the lobby by the resort’s inhabitants and signage created by its owners on the walls. Before you ride into the resort, a TV-style opening credits sequence bombards you with dozens of black-and-white stock footage shots, setting the mood for when you find all the cheerful townsfolk suddenly gone. Throughout, The Medium makes sure you can’t forget the weight that history can have on a place. The Medium is a fairly straightforward adventure game you explore environments as Marianne from set camera angles, and have to move objects to climb walls, use keys to open doors, and examine items to glean a little history from them using your medium powers.

When she arrives, the resort is abandoned and padlocked. But as its dual-world concept comes into focus and its ghost stories wade into muddier waters, The Medium doesn’t build on these intriguing threads, and instead begins to follow a more rote horror framework.Īfter Marianne sees her foster father off, she gets a call from a stranger named Thomas, urging her to come to the Niwa Worker’s Resort just outside Krakow, Poland, and dangling answers about a recurring dream Marianne has been trying to decipher for most of her life. And for a while, the game sticks to that tone, grounding Marianne’s eventual journey into the spirit world in a thick history, one filled with haunted people and places. It’s a touching opening, and a hint at the kinds of ghost stories The Medium seems poised to tell: ones in which the dead must confront personal issues instead of curses or demons. After one final conversation with her loved one - something Marianne admits few others get to have - she sees him off to face the next life in peace. Jack isn’t malevolent or somehow twisted into a monster by his vices and regrets he’s confused and tired, not entirely sure of what’s going on. That doesn’t make it any easier.Īfter Jack’s spirit manifests in the funeral home and breaks a vase, Marianne finds and deals with him the way she’s done with so many other spirits before him. As Marianne, a funeral home worker with the ability to enter the spirit world and communicate with the dead, you knew this moment was coming. It’s your foster father Jack, a man with a warm smile and a beleaguered cadence to his voice. The first spirit you see in The Medium is someone you know.

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