The Medium Reviews
I’ve been waiting a long time for Bloober to finally nail down true horror, and The Medium is a wonderful example of how to do scary without relying on cheap tricks. If you’re a fan of Silent Hill, Clock Tower, Haunting Ground or even if you just want to test out the capabilities of the latest Xbox consoles, The Medium is a must-play.
Literally straddling the line between supernatural and real-world horror, The Medium is satisfying, sleek, and sophisticated in every department. While it makes only limited use of its signature simultaneous reality mechanic, and features some of the same gameplay frustrations as earlier Bloober Team games, it's easy to overlook such stumbles. The Medium sidesteps scare gimmicks to deliver a masterclass in mature horror, one rooted in atmosphere, all-round restraint and an enthralling region-specific story. Note: On Xbox we scored the game 8.0 for some intermittent performance issues.
The Medium is a pretty fun horror game, but it lacks must of the values of series like Silent Hill.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The Medium is a very good horror narrative game, despites somes riddles that may be too simple, and the dual reality mechanics may not be as original as expected...
Review in French | Read full review
Despite its technical prowess and stunning visuals, The Medium is a drag. From slow, uninteresting gameplay to a confusing and poorly executed story, Bloober Team's latest makes for a good tech demo, but not much else.
The Medium is at its best whenever the player gets to lives up to the game's title.
The Medium is an incredible journey, a necessary game that stands as one of the exponents of the genre. A dramatic story that you won't want to miss.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
The Medium finally arrives on PlayStation 5, bringing over Bloober Team's horror experience to a new audience with packed DualSense implementation and a few persistent gripes from the Xbox Series version.
In sum, The Medium is a great game with a few quirks, and it’s the best from Bloober Team to date. Available on Game Pass, it’s well-worth playing through as it makes for a nice early next-gen experience.
The Medium feels like a culmination of everything Bloober Team have learned from their previous titles, pushing the envelope creatively while still heavily referencing classic horror games as their inspiration. The adventure does an excellent job of immersing you in its dark and twisted world, full of tortured souls and dark secrets begging to be uncovered. The dual-reality gameplay adds a fantastic riff to proceedings, a mechanic that has been cleverly injected into the gameplay and story in a really compelling way. While it could stand to leave some of its old-school sensibilities behind, its heartfelt story and creepy setting demands your attention right up until the credits roll.
Overall, The Medium is able to evoke the same kind of feelings you might expect from a game like Silent Hill. There are tense scenes and an eerie atmosphere that is engaging from start to finish. Naturally, there are some flaws, such as difficult puzzles, clunky controls or subpar stealth mechanics, but the deep story through the two worlds more than makes up for it, making it start as a strong showing for Xbox this year.
The Medium is not only the best game from the Bloober Team but also one of the greatest virtual psychological horrors out there. It’s on the same level as the masterpiece I consider What Remains of Edith Finch to be. And if you accept the lack of survival and action elements in the gameplay, you’ll get a great heir to the Silent Hill series. If you prefer story and atmosphere over typical action – it’s a game for you!
Review in Polish | Read full review
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.
Despite an improved narrative when compared to Layers of Fear, The Medium does drag on a bit — especially near its climax — and resorts to a couple lazier puzzles at around that same point. On the whole though, The Medium is a rather enjoyable experience, especially for those who are fans of any of the myriad survival horror franchises I’ve already mentioned.
A good horror game can make rifling through old postcards and personal letters a compelling experience. But The Medium seems entitled, in that it expects me to be titillated by its character design and atmosphere but won't give me enough context to actually care about them. Between that and its tired puzzle-based progression barriers and dull character powers, The Medium fails to justify its existence.
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 poor game that is rife with bugs, bad ideas, and some nice things to look at.
The Medium is an interesting title to play through, but I think it is fair to say that while the split-screen, dual world element is a fascinating idea, it never truly excels at pushing the idea to its maximum potential.
The Medium boasts an engaging narrative plus clever gaming dynamics and while it starts slow, the ending builds to an impressive crescendo of unexpected surprises. So if you like to be surprised, don't keep reading the reviews or watching Youtube videos because this is one game that must be experienced without coming in with any prior knowledge as you twist your way through of both the land of the living and… the dead!