I've laid into them before but I have to hand it to horror-developers, Bloober team, they sure are determined to become the renowned horror developers of our time. (Good on them.) Honestly, the sheer quantity of content they've put out in the later half of this decade is quite humbling, I have no idea how they've managed it with a relatively smaller studio like they have. (Okay, they're more 'medium sized' with over 100 employees) That being said, I have to admit that they haven't managed to hit us with their 'defining' game yet and that does make me worry a bit. 'Layers of Fear' was okay, I've never even heard anyone talk about the sequel, Observer was underappreciated and Blair Witch was... look, each to their own but I hated Blair Witch. Be that their circumstance, the studio are still at it and perhaps their resilience will pay off once this latest title, The Medium, drags us all into its hellish dreamscape.
Now for better or for worse, this is a game that I've twice misidentified as a surprise reveal for the next Silent Hill game. But seeing as how the team have mentioned their influence by those games, perhaps such a comparison is flattering for them, because this team have certainly nailed the look of those games. (Perhaps a little too well, truth be told.) The Medium, pits itself as another psychological thriller (this studio certainly has a type) which looks to put players in the shoes of a young woman with the power to communicate with a demonic otherworld of spirits and, probably, demons. (There's always demons in these sorts of games.) In the vein of it's inspirations, this means that there'll be a lot of puzzle solving alongside the usual affair of running from deadly monsters and slowly piecing together the mystery that draws our heroine to this abandoned locale.
What really sets The Medium apart from all the other games which have this similar set-up, and indeed even Silent Hill itself, is the 'patented dual reality gameplay'. This is the system where the player, at any point in time, can enter the spooky world of spirits and see a completely different layout around them, in the effort to solve puzzles, learn more about the past that haunts this place and, though it's yet to be confirmed, I'd imagine dealing with some enemies. Now what this essentially means is that the game engine is simultaneously rending two environments at once as you travel around whilst letting the player glimpse only ever at one, which is a lot easier than trying to find a way to get the engine to load another area insanely fast. This is the gimmick that Bloober Team are really trying to sell The Medium on, and it is an impressive display of next gen technology, I will admit. (Even if I just have to pretend that cancelled Legacy of Kain game didn't think of it first.)
The benefit of such a system, as displayed in their recent trailer and toted heavily on the official website (perhaps even 'obnoxiously') is that it inherently creates two different gameplay experiences depending on what world you're in at what time. As we see demonstrated, the world you occupy actually carries over to cutscenes (I assume that's only some cutscenes, but it could be all of them) resulting in there technically being two versions of practically every scene in the game. Who's to say there aren't details that one might miss from being in the other world at the time? It creates an incentive for players to dive back into the game if they want to piece together the things that they might have missed, in a similar vein to the way that Metal Gear Solid totes perspective shifts during certain cutscenes to lure back in the ultra-invested. (Although I don't know if it'll add a dimension onto some scenes in the way that MGS3 does.)
Personally, the aspect of this game which really does get my attention is in the way it sort of regresses from the common formula of the modern horror game scene. Namely, how they shirk the first person perspective in order to withdraw back to the third person which we had back in the days of the early Resident Evil's and Alone in the Dark. Now don't get me wrong, I understand why first person horror has become such a sought commodity in the modern world. The best of horror is achieved when the viewer is bought into the shoes of the one in danger and the most intimate perspective is the first person for that regard, but I've seen this practice done enough times to know that this almost always comes at the cost of storytelling. 'Amnesia: Dark Decent' arguably birthed this trend with a narrative which revolved around identity and so behoved the main character having no face and merely being an outlet for the exploration of the player, but not every game which followed Amnesia's shoes have had that excuse and that's resulted in a generation of cookie-cutter horror protagonists. Tell me the difference between Miles and Ethan, from Outlast and Resident Evil respectively; there is no difference because they have no character! And I find it hard to engage appropriately with a story and enter the situation immersively when I'm just expected to play myself in every game. Sure it works for limited experiences but for entire narratives it can become a bit of a mess.
Bloober team are essentially going against their own formula to make this change of perspective for The Medium and I commend them for it. It allows them to make the environment the key feature of this world, much like Silent Hill does, whilst not taking away from the extraordinary nature of an individual who can relate to this world. For the Silent Hill games this is essential, as the town of Silent Hill itself exists as a morality construct that delves into the darkest recesses of the mind in order to face people with their unburnished selves, and perhaps that's the same sort of parallel they want to set up for this Marianne. Whilst ostensibly the game will follow her journey to uncover the truth behind the murder of a child, and I think a pregnant woman is wound up in there too, I'd be very surprised if this didn't loop around back to Marianne somehow and the powers that she has. If it does, then we have the benefit of perspective to really sell such a story.
Finally, I must commend the visual design of a game that straddles two worlds like this as it does have an interesting effect on the feel of the game. As someone who really likes to break down horror games (those he's brave enough to play) I recognise how important the presentation of each location is as well as the horror genres they each pay homage to. (Resident Evil is a series in particular that touches on a lot of different ones.) The Medium, on the otherhand, appears to be trying for the rare achievement of catering to two different styles simultaneously, again, through the boon of their dual-reality system. The real world seems to play to the isolation and fear of being in a place that's abandoned and vacant; informed by the unsettling visuals of places that should be bustling with life (fun fairs, Malls etc.) but which are now dead. The world of spirits, however, looks openly harsh and hostile with it's swirling orange skies and imposing almost-alien backgrounds. They are two very different styles, one active and the other static, which I think has the potential to result in an experience inherently difficult to grow fully accustomed to, which may just help the psychological horror set it's roots.
Ultimately, I'm not really the biggest fan of Bloober Team's work, but I recognise them as a studio that really tries everytime they make a game and as long as that remains true I will never write them off. They seem to have forged a trend for mind-bending, and I feel there's a lot of room in the market for a studio to specialise in that, thus I respect their efforts. Though I will admit, it is due directly to Konami's reticence to work on their amazingly broad-potentiated Silent Hill franchise that makes me interested in this game, otherwise my attention would be firmly driven elsewhere. (I just love the Silent Hill premise so much whilst this one just sort of interests me.) Be that as it may, I hope Bloober team can take this opportunity to really blow the horror market away, prove me wrong, and make their mark for this game, before Kojima really does the impossible and gets on that SH game he's apparently headed for. For the time being the stage is yours, Bloober, don't waste it.
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