A first look at ‘The Medium’ gameplay on the Xbox Series X

The Medium will probably split our minds as it gives us another take on psychological puzzle solving. This dark mystery horror game may be one of the most slept on titles in the Xbox Games Showcase.

While most fans were focused on Microsoft’s major titles such as Halo Infinite, Bloober Team has given us its first look at the official 4K gameplay.

The team behind the games Blair Witch and Observer has impressed gamers once again. Think of The Medium as a game that somewhat reminds you of Stranger Things since it also has an alternate reality.

In the game, you play as Marianne, a medium who has the ability to bridge together reality and the spirit world.

Later on in the game, players get to discover Marianne’s psychic abilities mentioned in the few minutes of gameplay.

The Out of Body is a skill where Marianne can explore more of the spirit world. The Spirit Blast ability can be used against evil spirits as well as powering up objects in the real world.

Players will also discover disturbing secrets and surviving encounters with The Maw – a monster born from an unspeakable tragedy.

Taking split-screen to a whole new level

While most split-screen games require you to team up with a friend, The Medium lets you control characters between reality and the spirit world simultaneously.

In the gameplay showcase, we see that Marianne searches the manager’s office seamlessly. Game producer Jacek Zieba also mentioned in his interview with Xbox that there will be no loading times.

At some point in the game, the player needs to look for connecting clues in the spirit world in order to access areas in the real world.

Musical scoring from Layers of Fear composer Arkadiusz Reikowski and Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka should add to the atmospheric disturbance of The Medium.

Bloober Team filed a patent for simultaneous split-screen

Aside from giving The Medium a unique experience in psychological horror gaming, the development team also filed a Google patent titled “Method of simultaneous playing in single-player video games” which was approved in 2019.

This is a smart move by the team in order to protect their intellectual property. However, it looks like gamers won’t be able to play this on their Xbox One as the developers mentioned that it is a next-gen only game.

The move makes sense as well since the next-gen consoles will also run on SSD which will drastically get rid of the loading times which is what The Medium is aiming for.

Let us see this year if Blobber Team would further impress the fans once The Medium comes out this year on both the Xbox Series X and Steam.

Images courtesy of (1), (2) The Medium