January proved to be a great month for Xbox Game Pass, offering up a wide variety of new games joining the service. From a console exclusive horror game to a absurdist puzzle game, this selection of Game Pass Picks will give a nice range for all players.
The Medium
In the vein of classic horror titles like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, The Medium is a supernatural horror game developed by Bloober Team exclusively for the Series S and X. In The Medium, you take control of Marianne, a woman who possesses the ability to peer into both the real world and the world of spirits.
Ever since the launch of Layers of Fear in 2016, Bloober Team has been steadily building its credentials as a creator of high quality horror games. Observer, Layers of Fear 2, Blair Witch; an unbroken run of releases that all mine a similar vein of psychological terror, always finding an audience, even if they never quite electrify the critics.
The Medium, which launched last week, is the Polish studio s most ambitious game so far, and by some distance its most keenly anticipated. This is largely down to its appearance at the Xbox Series X|S showcase last year, where its moody, dramatic trailer played a starring role. It was also one of a very small handful of games that were both exclusive to Microsoft s new consoles and had a solid chance of launching within a few months of the hardware.
The Medium : The real world and spirit world split in this unusually dynamic adventure
Christopher Byrd, The Washington Post
Jan. 28, 2021
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A cliche can supercharge a story if it opens the door for its own subversion. That was my thought when I finished The Medium, a game which begins with a woman uttering the portentous words, It all starts with a dead girl, as she describes a recurring dream she has had since childhood.
In it, a man chases a girl through a wooded area to a pier, where he shoots her with a pistol. The first time I watched the scene play out, I thought of other stories that revolve around dead girls: Twin Peaks, The Virgin Suicides, the two True Detective seasons worth watching, etc., not to mention the articles I ve glanced at that have examined the trope in YA fiction. Skeptical of such a setup, I was gratified to see how the tale of the murdered dream girl ends up running aground on the shore of reality.
Can The Medium Explain What’s Beyond?
What lies beyond? It’s a question that’s dominated the human psyche since the dawn of consciousness. What beyond that ridge? That horizon? Or the ultimate, most unanswerable question of all: what lies beyond this mortal plane? What happens when we pass on?
Without answers, hints, or even the faintest notion of an inkling, it’s unsurprising that so much time and effort has been devoted to media exploring death. The entire horror genre and most thrillers directly rely on death as a story element, and games are no different. Resident Evil and Silent Hill started the ball rolling decades ago, and the trend holds up today.