The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan Reviews
Buy Man of Medan if you liked Until Dawn and want to see how The Dark Pictures Anthology might shape up. Avoid this game if you can't abide performance issues or slow gameplay.
Men of Medan promises a story about ghosts but the only ghost on the ship is the system of choiches and consequences, flat and shallow, "un-supported" by an unstable framerate and by command system that feels old and intricate. What saves this debut from failure is the atmosphere and the possibilities about future episodes.
Review in Italian | Read full review
While Man of Medan isn’t the greatest game you’ll play this year, it does a good enough job of setting the Dark Pictures Anthology series out to sea.
With Man of Medan, Supermassive builds on the foundation established in 2015's Until Dawn. While the core of the game remains the same, driven by dialog, choices, and quick-time events, the developers has added some multiplayer action to the mix. The two-player online Shared Story is the primary highlight here, allowing two players to simultaneously determine the course of the story. Unfortunately, the story itself isn't as good as the horror yarn spun in Until Dawn.
Man of Medan is a thinner, flawed follow-up to Until Dawn that is saved by its online co-op mode.
Combining Until Dawn's style of mild horror with online multiplayer works great, but the actual story and characters fail to engage.
Man of Medan does some things extremely well, particularly with its well-crafted story that offers great replay value, and choices having more impact than in Until Dawn. But then it completely fails on other fronts such as the many game-breaking technical problems, a horrible online experience, lack of a flowchart or cutscene skip in Chapter Select, and an absurdly convoluted trophy list.
Man of Medan offers an interesting horror story with a unique way of cooperative gameplay, but it should offer more interactivity and more replayability.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
While the story didn’t live up to expectations, the actors’ performances are fantastic as Man of Medan delivers its quota of horror tropes in chapter one of The Dark Pictures Anthology.
When played with a group of friends The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan is an undeniably fun experience. However, the main story and core game feel rather skeletal when not being filled out by the real-world flesh and blood of your nearest and dearest. Bugs and performance issues constantly nag, but the real disappointment is that as a horror story Man of Medan is not even close to being as smart or fun as its predecessor. I hope the next entry in The Dark Pictures anthology can recapture the gore and glory from Until Dawn.
It is obvious that Man of Medan's gameplay inherits from Until Dawn, but the online multiplayer mode is impressive and interesting. Beside that, it is a underwhelming game with a bad story-telling pace.
Review in Chinese | Read full review
The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan offers up fun frights and a solid choice-based horror experience - especially when played with others on the same couch.
The moment where everything makes sense, is when the player realizes that if he does not understand in time what the mystery is, he ends up being responsible for the biggest misfortunes that can happen to the characters in the game.
Review in Greek | Read full review
Man of Medan is an okay introduction to Supermassive Games' stories for Xbox and PC players. PS4 should stick to the previous titles
Technical issues and graphical glitches aside, Man Of Medan is a pretty good title, with a creepy atmosphere and enough jump scares to keep you on edge through most of the game. The characters themselves, with a few exceptions, are generally unlikable though and it’s something Until Dawn had issues with too through much of its run-time. While I understand that generally in horror movies you’ll find the same thing, the archetypal characters and cookie-cutter characterisation offers little substance to build empathy with these people, and much of the time spent playing this you’ll find yourself progressing passively, rather than genuinely caring whether these people make it to safety or not.
A cool horror game that sometimes depends on jumpscares a little too much.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Studio Supermassive Games knows, how to make great story games. Unfortunately, what they once managed to do in Until Dawn, in Man of Medan fails upon its short game lenght, which does harm mainly to the main characters and dialogues. Otherwise beautiful variety of choice, dark horrifying atmosphere and the feeling of never-ending uncertainty hides behind technical issues, which constantly disturb impressive continuity of the story. Man of Medan thrives in bringing something new as perfectly-done multiplayer into the world of story-telling adventure games, but fails in ways, in which others excel.
Review in Czech | Read full review
Ultimately, Man of Medan is a decent experience, and it does exactly what it says on the tin. But it does feel more like a single episode (which it is), than an entire game.
Bad acting and not that great of a story plus some control issues, really feels like at least one or two steps down from their previous successful game. If Supermassive Games wants to make The Dark Pictures Anthology a great franchise, they need to make big changes because Man of Medan leaves a lot to be desired.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Despite having a decent story-line and a well-structured choice system, Man of Medan is a typical narrative experience ruined by a medley of messy controls. It does not present you with any moral dilemma, however, it may bring about horrifying premonitions. Therefore, one must tread carefully on uncharted territory and ponder whether probing deeper will have any inadvertent consequences.