The Medium Trailer: The Horror Excluded On Xbox Series X Unveiled (Video And Interview)

Trailer The Medium: the horrible outcast on Xbox Series X is revealed (video and interview)

After shaking up the little world of psychological horror with Layers of Fear in 2016, revisiting cyber-drama in 2017 with Observer, and reviving Blair Witch in 2019 alongside a very good Layers of Fear 2, the prolific team of studio Bloober Team is now tackling the next-gen with The Medium.

Why Xbox Series X and Microsoft?

We had the opportunity to speak quickly with Wojciech Piejko, one of the designers of the title, scheduled for a release at the end of the year on Xbox Series X and PC. The Medium is a brand new license, which will take advantage of Microsoft's machine architecture, especially for 4K, Ray-Tracing and for the implementation of the SSD :

Having an SSD as storage allows us to make a game without interruption, and without loading time. For immersion, it's something perfect.

The title offers a rather special horrifying atmosphere since it embodies Marianne, a woman with the ability to travel between the real world and the hostile spirit world. One day receiving the vision of the murder of a child, she decides to go and investigate in a disused hotel complex, and will meet several characters there. As the game progresses, our perception of these same characters and events will change as we learn more about each other's actions, exploring both worlds, or having visions while we sleep.

When the next-gen looks to “old school survival horror”

We quickly realize by talking to the developers that their intention is to mix the power of the new technologies of the 9th generation of consoles with the models of the old survival horror, who made the heyday of the fifth generation.

If you've played our games, you know we've always created first-person horror games. The Medium is our next step, so we're moving the camera to third person. We tackle old-school survival horror with "semi-fixed" cameras: we are really looking for a very cinematic experience. We really created it like a film, starting with a storyboard, choosing the best and most destabilizing shots in order to support our ambition.

And if Wojciech is discreet enough about the technical improvements that make this game an exclusivity that could not have been done before, however, it suggests that a very impressive feature, technically speaking, is at the heart of the title and is not yet visible:

The feature that sets our game apart from the rest will be something that, it seems to me, has never been seen before. I think the players will say “wow!” discovering it, but for now, it's a secret …

The press relations manager adds a few details:

The feature he is talking about is about how we interact with the two worlds … And we patented this feature … For us, this is really a big topic and we are the only ones who can do that at the moment. But let's not rush things, for now we want the players to focus on the story, the atmosphere, the music. We still have a lot of time to reveal other features …

A musical duo of the most beautiful effect

Wojiech adds to the subject of music that this is one of the central elements of the adventure.

For the occasion, the studio has a very high-profile cast which will delight fans of old-fashioned survival horror …

"In creating The Medium, we collaborated with Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill). He works jointly with our composer, Arkadiusz Reikowski, and these two geniuses make the game OST.

Where is the development?

True to its reputation, the Bloober Team is still prolific and tells us that the development of The Medium is soon over. The game will indeed soon pass to the following stages of its production (Q.A., debug, polishing and optimization) and aims to be released in the same waters as the Microsoft console, exclusively, alongside the PC. Indeed, the obligation to support the One and the One X for several months only applies to the first party titles, and not for the 2nd or 3rd party, which can completely release games exclusive to the new machine. Very satisfied with his relationship with Microsoft and Blair Witch's performance within the GamePass, The Bloober Team announces that they want to repeat the maneuver for The Medium, which will therefore be available there from its first day of marketing.