However, one day out of the blue, she gets a call from a man named Thomas who claims to know about the source of her powers, and implores her to travel to the Hotel Niwa, a site of a massacre five years prior, that may just hold the answers Marianne is looking for. A liaison of sorts between our world and the spirit world, she helps guide restless ghosts into the afterlife. Moving on to the story, The Medium tells the tale of Marianne, a young woman with a unique connection to the spirit world. Still, in terms of visuals overall, The Medium is quite strong and definitely a next-gen game.
The only area where the game arguably falters visually speaking is in the character models which, while still good, do stick out a bit and look like they are from a late gen Xbox One game (again, not a bad benchmark they can just pop out a tad). The spirit world – another important part of the game we’ll get to shortly – trades photorealism for a visual design inspired by the works of Polish artist Zdzisław Beksiński it hits just the right notes between unsettling and beautiful. The work done by Bloober is absolutely jaw-dropping, and the expertly integrated ray tracing is a visual delight. And yes, I am including the Demon’s Souls Remake, HITMAN 3 and Spider-Man Miles Morales on PS5 in this comparison. Several of the environments, particularly ones set during daytime, are as close to photorealistic as I’ve seen running on a console. Beginning with the visuals, The Medium is a complete showstopper in environment design.