A timed exclusive that was originally released on the Xbox Series X & PC at the beginning of the year, before finally arriving on the PS5 earlier this month. The Medium follows Marianne (featuring a standout performance by Kelly Burke), a medium, who becomes wrapped up in a dark mystery that could potentially unlock the mysteries of her past, as well as exploring another potentially dangerous realm that also hides lethal and shocking secrets. Developed by Bloober Team (of Layers of Fear and Observer fame), the game delivers a frequently intriguing, creative and immersive experience that will have fans of the older Silent Hill titles and other third person horror adventures immediately on board. However a short playtime, repetitive gameplay and typical convoluted and unnecessary Bloober story beats hold it back. The story deals with many traumatic and disturbing themes, be it supernatural or grounded in reality. This sets a bleak tone for the proceedings and with the help of the score, sound design and location design, really helps craft an enrapturing atmosphere, especially during the game’s first half. Unfortunately there are a couple of sections dedicated to another character that, whilst visually impressive and deranged, do overstay their welcome and take away from Marianne, who is far more of an interesting protagonist. World building comes in the form of listening to past memories, helping lost souls back to their resting place and the ever reliable notes, diary entries etc. The main gameplay hook and unique selling point is the split screen implementation, which sees Marianne’s physical and otherworldly forms be utilised to solve puzzles and open up a whole other gameplay dynamic. This is seamlessly integrated and provides some fun puzzles and tense chase encounters (the highlight being a forest sequence which switches between both realities in real time). The main threat of the game is the twisted Maw (brilliantly voiced by Troy Baker), whose encounters switch between intense chases and largely simplistic stealth sections. Aside from him, you quickly realise the game doesn’t provide any other dangers to Marianne, which does unfortunately neuter the tension throughout. Graphically the game is genuinely stunning at certain points. The forest section is incredibly photorealistic and the contrast between the dulled down grounded real life sequences and the rusty, orange and spectral spirit realm. Obviously Bloober Team were still under some budgetary limitations, however this is by far their biggest and best looking game. Had it been longer and with a larger variety of enemy encounters The Medium could really have been something special, especially with its already unique and very solid main gameplay hook. The visual style, eeriness, world building and engaging lead character do make it worth a play overall.