The Medium Gameplay Trailer Showcases Dual-Reality Mechanics

Bloober Team, the developers of the upcoming psychological horror The Medium, have released a short gameplay video for the game. The main focus is what seems to be the core mechanic of the experience, aka the dual realities. Our protagonist Marianne is a psychic, and exists parallel in both the physical and spirit realms. The different interactions between the two worlds help you solve puzzles and discover secrets of the dilapidated resort you’re exploring.

So, what can we suss out from the gameplay trailer of The Medium (which you can check out below, by the way)? Well, for one, we get to see Marianne use some of her special abilities; mainly, the spirit blast and “Out-of-Body.” The latter seems to be a system in which the protagonist goes completely into the spirit world, and so, you only control that version of her. Normally, you control both at the same time. The spirit blast, on the other hand, is used both to charge physical objects and to battle antagonistic ghosts.

Marianne’s psychic abilities have to be charged at spirit wells, which we also see in the video. The most interesting bit, of course, is how the physical and spirit realms affect each other. For example, playing with the clock in the physical realm moves time in the spirit world. It’s an interesting way to interact with the two environments, and not many games do this. I’m honestly kind jazzed to see what this game is going to have to offer.

The Medium is coming out during the holiday season of 2020; no exact release date at the time of writing. We do know that it’ll be available on PC (via Steam) and Xbox Series X. It’s currently open for pre-orders. Personally, I find the concept pretty appealing, mostly because it remings me somewhat of the plane-shifting mechanic from one of my favorite games of all time, Soul Reaver. I’m not gonna pre-order, but I keep my eye on this one.