The Medium Puts A Reality-Bending Spin On Horror

Bloober Team is known for its work within the horror genre, with games including Layers of Fear, Observer, and Blair Witch. The Polish studio revealed its latest game, The Medium, during today’s Inside Xbox presentation, and one look at its trailer proved that it’s not moving onto softer stuff anytime soon. The game features Marianne, the titular medium, who is inexplicably drawn toward an abandoned hotel and its surrounding resort.

Players will explore this creepy location in two ways: the physical world we all inhabit, and the spirit world that she can tap into using her special gift. She heads to the hotel after receiving visions of a child’s murder. In the trailer, we see both worlds bleeding into the other, with a strange visual effect.

The setting alone is unnerving, but the soundtrack may possibly elevate the horror. It’s being composed by both Bloober Team’s Arkadiusz Reikowski and Akira Yamaoka. Yamaoka’s work is well-known within the horror community, even if his name doesn’t ring a bell. He was a longtime composer for the Silent Hill series, starting with the first entry and working on the franchise until 2012’s Silent Hill: Book of Memories.

Bloober Team's games have shifted away from focusing on jump scares to setting up unnerving worlds to explore, so this could be an interesting – and frightening – game to keep on your radar.

The Medium is coming to Xbox Series X this holiday.