The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan Reviews
Hopefully, Supermassive Games can learn from what went wrong here and apply it to their next projects.
Failing to deliver as an effective horror story, Man of Medan is interminably slow to get started, and when it does, the narrative and performances prove more laughable than scary. The best kind of horror is the stuff that really gets under your skin, but sadly, this barely even pricks it. A soggy first chapter in The Dark Pictures Anthology, Man of Medan is best left on the seabed to rust.
A great game held back by numerous technical problems. The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan promises another great experience in the vein of Until Dawn, but at least on the standard console is too stuttery to play. Much of the content will be inaccessible due to these performance issues. If you have an enhanced console definitely check it out, but unless it receives a patch it can scarcely be considered playable.
Shallow story, repetitive jump scares, unbalanced QTE, annoying camera angles... all saved by the online co-op mode.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
While Man of Medan has a decent horror story, a number of technical problems and inconsistencies derail the experience. It's best to wait for a patch or two before purchasing.
Despite it’s shortcomings, the game is still somewhat entertaining, and I’m hoping Supermassive will knock the next entry of this spooky anthology out of the park.
One hopes Man of Medan will function similarly to a mediocre TV pilot for a series that only later finds its footing.
Bumpy horror adventure that is narrative, artisanal and technically disappointing.
Review in German | Read full review
Players will probably find themselves rattling through the game just to see things through, and might even get a kick out of tweaking some outcomes – but the first Dark Pictures tale is unlikely to linger in the memory for long.
Man of Medan kicks The Dark Pictures Anthology off with a whimper rather than a bang. The format has a lot of potential, but this was undoubtedly the wrong story to showcase it. The narrative is slight and rarely gets out of first gear, the characters are annoying, the scares limp, and the dialogue unnatural. There's constant technical hiccups. In fact, the scariest thing about Man of Medan is how it ever went gold in the state that it's in.
The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan pales in comparison to Until Dawn in practically every way and only surpasses it in its amount of jankiness.
Playing with good friends over some beer and chips for a night or two will make this more enjoyable and bearable. A family can play too if guardians don’t mind the graphic content. This is the first among eight series and it is actually a good start. Really good intentions but poorly executed and I just sincerely hope they learn from this release and improves the next. Little Hope gets to be released in 2020 and it showed so much potential. I am quite excited and ready to forgive Man of Medan if the latter turns out great.
Developer Supermassive Games was on track to pioneering interactive horror in their breakout PS4 exclusive Until Dawn. Unfortunately, Man of Medan doesn't come close to matching that 2015 release. What they've provided is a dull horror story with predictable jump-scares, uninteresting characters, and a story that will leave you scratching your head and saying, "Really?"
It may be clever, scary and intriguing, but Man of Medan rarely reaches the heights of its stablemate and elder sibling, Until Dawn. Perhaps its a case of difficult second album syndrome, or more likely, it’s just too weighed down by the tropes and trappings associated with the genre. (And the sooner Supermassive ditches its penchant for fourth-wall-breaking, creepy old narrators, the better.)
A so-so debut for a promising series.
Despite how negative I may have seemed there, I do genuinely want The Dark Pictures Anthology to continue and succeed (the game even seems to tease the next entry in it, seemingly already in the works), as I loved Until Dawn and would love to see more similar experiences from Supermassive. But despite having the same solid mechanics as its big brother, Man of Medan starts the anthology off on a thoroughly "meh" note, thanks its unimpressive, poorly-constructed story.
Man of Medan isn't a bad story, adventure game or honestly experience, it just has plenty of ways to improve. Between a slow burn leading to a quick fizzle at the end and performance issues, it's the type of experience that really requires a love for the genre or experience to have. You just have to ask yourself how much do you want to explore a largely linear world with seemingly limited choices to fight a threat that might not even exist and see how many of your friends make it out alive.
Until Dawn follow-up Man of Medan has amazing ideas in the cooperative space but collapses under the weights of performance issues.
If you like other choose-your-own-adventure games like Until Dawn, Life is Strange, and Detroit: Become Human, there’s definitely fun to be had here, but it is a flawed experience compared to other recent efforts.
While it feels like a not insignificant step down from the breakout hit Until Dawn, Supermassive Games' latest attempt at interactive horror still serves up some compelling thrills and chills. The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan definitely gets better the deeper you get into its story, but traveling that path is fraught with technical issues and questionable narrative direction more often than it should be.