You certainly haven’t missed the latest phenomenon from Bloober team (Layers of fear, Blair Witch, …). in the The mediumYou play as a young woman named Marianne. It can navigate between two worlds at the same time: the “real” world and the “spiritual” world. The strength of this title lies in the fact that the two visions of our protagonist are transcribed on our screen at the same time. This is the famous one “Dual Reality”.
You can find more information about dual reality in this article: The medium explains the dual reality system
If you haven’t tested the adventure yet, you know that you can watch Marianne’s two visions on your TV several times at the same time. This is obviously for narrative purposes and you will be good at controlling once the avatar for both screens. Also thanks to this atypical gameplay, The heroine will be able to Solve puzzles and other puzzles to move forward in the story. Depending on the point in time of the scenario This screen is halved horizontally or vertically.
But don’t get me wrong Dual Reality is very different from the standard split-screen system. Indeed here Both worlds must be calculated at the same time. In addition, the developers point out that they have powerful consoles such as the Xbox Series X | S need to be able to use the potential of dual reality.
Why a powerful console?
As you may have noticed throughout your career, most games feature a split screen. These show two different versions of the same place as in Missile league, Portal 2, and many others. In The mediumthe two worlds presented are not the same at all. in addition, They each use unique graphic elements, including their own 3D models and textures. In terms of memory, storage, and rendering calculations, this is all very demanding.
Therefore, Each effect has to be calculated and rendered twice, one in the “real world” and the other in the “spirit world”. Partly, this is why the previous generations of consoles couldn’t do this titanic job.
Effects like motion blur or ambient occlusion should be calculated and rendered twice. In short, the game requires a significant amount of RAM for video and a storage system that is much faster than that used for previous generations. Seeing screenshots or trailers may make you feel familiar, but technically, dual reality actually works differently than traditional split screens. It takes a lot more power.
Jacek Zięba, Producteur, Bloober Team
The gameplay of The medium focuses on using this dual reality. The development team had to work on it for two years. In addition, this technology is unique of its kind. If you want to immerse yourself in this psychological horror adventure and run down long, dark, deserted corridors, The medium is available without additional costs in Xbox Game Pass. Otherwise, you can purchase it in the Microsoft Store for $ 49.99.
