Psychics being called in to help solve a mystery in real life is usually an act that’s less useful than screen doors on a submarine. A grift that usually fails spectacularly, it always amazes me when I hear a story about law enforcement hiring one of the con artists and acting surprised when sinister forces hamper their self-proclaimed telepathic powers during the hunt for a missing person.
Psychic detectives in entertainment though? I can dig that! One such sleuth that players will get a chance to control next week is Marianne from The Medium. Developed by Bloober Team, the same fellas behind Layers of Fear and that spooky Blair Witch game, The Medium has been hyping its dual-reality features since it was revealed in 2020, but there’ll also be a big mystery to solve in the process.
So how do actual psychic powers factor into the equation? In the new video, Marianne’s powered-up senses allow her to find hidden switches and interact with objects, exploring echoes from the past. In addition to that, soul fragments allow for conversations of long-gone people to be reconstructed and you can even chat to a few recently departed phantasms.
All of that provides more clues and context to the central mystery in an abandoned hotel in Krakow, while also bringing some final peace to the damned souls trapped within its walls. Sort of like working at McDonalds on a Friday night. You’ve got to watch out for The Maw though, a blind and terrifying adversary which can also cross over between dimensions and is, surprise, voiced by Troy Baker. “I’ve played the brooding hero, I’ve played the hands-on-hips superhero [but The Maw] is something like I’ve never done before,” Baker said to IGN back in August.
There’s a fear and a challenge that comes with that, because you start asking yourself ‘can I do this? Is this something I can do?’
According to my vast psychic energies that definitely weren’t obtained from a quick read of a John Edwards novel so that I could make a quick buck off of human suffering, The Medium is out on Xbox Series X/S and PC on January 28. Ignore the last year of trailers, interviews, and official website information because I definitely dropped that bombshell first with my special gifts.
Last Updated: January 20, 2021
