As the release date for The Medium creeps closer and closer, developer Bloober Team has ramped up promotional posts, offering new pieces of information for fans to chew on.
Previously, we wrote about the live action trailer for The Medium in which a glimpse of one of the game’s large monsters could be seen.
Now, a new video has been shared that walks gamers through the main character’s ability as a Medium, and it contains a lot more information than you might think.
New Video on The Medium Explains Marianne’s Abilities
In a new video for The Medium titled “What Does a Medium Do?” Bloober Team’s Michał Napora walks viewers through a “quick-fire video that explains how the game plays” and offers insight into Marianne’s abilities as a medium.
In the game, you’ll play as Marianne, a medium who has the ability to sense things that others cannot which gives her insight into how the spirit world influences our own. Directly tied to this concept, the video shows some of The Medium’s unique dual-reality gameplay where the real world and the spirit world are rendered side-by-side.
Not only will you explore the spirit world, you’ll also solve puzzles in The Medium. Regular, everyday objects hold clues, and as Marianne you’ll be able to pick up these special objects and “relive the events of the past through the so-called Echoes” in Marianne’s head.
Again, we see the signature shoe from the gameplay trailer which can be rotated around until a clue is discovered on the shoe’s heel. We imagine these hidden clues will encourage players to explore in the game in order to uncover secrets and insight into the things Marianne is investigating.
The video continues by noting that Marianne can “reveal small fragments of a soul frozen in a specific moment of time.”
When Marianne interacts with a book of poems shown with a Polish title (the game is set in Poland) — Wiersze i Poematy by William Blake — she sees silhouettes of people in the spirit world and can use this recollection to “hear what the soul said or thought in that exact instance.”
The recollection mentions a nurse, then the video shows Marianne walks over a few steps to a different item in the same area which contains prescription information for someone named Ursula Anna Rostkowski. Pausing for a moment to read the text on this prescription paper, we can glean some key information about this person.
First, the date the prescription was written was June 14, 1971. Meanwhile, Ursula’s birthdate is indicated to be May 24, 1930. This means that Ursula was 41 the time the prescription was written for her.
Prescription information contains two medications, pipofezine and buspirone. Both of these are real medications, with pipofezine prescribed as an antidepressant and buspirone prescribed for the treatment of anxiety.
This is further emphasized by Ursula’s diagnosis underneath these medications which reads, “Ursula Rostkowski: diagnosed with depression, hysteria, insomnia, and malnutrition. Treated with electroshock. Refill 6 times.”
We’re curious as to whether Ursula will be a key component to unravelling aspects of the game’s story, or if this is side information is simply to help flesh out the world that Marianne is exploring. Either way, it’s an interesting clue to find.
The video also doubles back to something else we saw in the previous gameplay video, Marianne interacting with the spirit of a child. “Marianne can communicate with the lost souls that are lingering in the spirit plane,” transcribed text for the video reads.
Perhaps one of the biggest pieces of insight into the game comes after this in a part that talks about the spirit realm itself. It’s noted that “The Medium’s spirit realm is neither Heaven, Hell, or Limbo” but is more akin to a parallel world in a way.
It’s described as a “place that’s closely tied with our reality, separated only by a thin veil” or a “waiting room before you go to the afterlife.” The concept ties to spirits with unfinished business or who are “simply not willing to let go” and because of this, get stuck in this waiting room of sorts.
Fortunately, Marianne has the ability to help guide some of these spirits to the afterlife, freeing them. The video emphasizes that as you explore this spirit world, you’ll uncover more about these spirits, all of whom are haunting the Niwa Hotel, the main setting that you’ll be exploring in The Medium.
It’s interesting to say the least, the idea of exploring a haunted, abandoned hotel and learning more about the location and the spirits that linger there.
We won’t know the rest of the story until The Medium is released on January 28, but until then, the video serves as a nice teaser in regards to what players can expect from the game.
Related: Xbox Game Pass Adds Yakuza, The Medium, Cyber Shadow, & More This Month
