Overall: ★★★ (3/5)

Story:
The story was intriguing right from the beginning. It does slow down a bit in the middle, but it manages to regain attention after about an hour and keeps you engaged again.

Gameplay:
The environment is well-designed and immersive. However, the gameplay feels a bit weak overall—it's mostly walking with story narration along the way. That said, it’s not too bad. The puzzles are quite basic and don’t offer much challenge.

note: I'm posting this review despite some project manager at Bloober Team having the bright idea to include a nag screen with "🥺 review? (yes/maybe later)". Don't do this.

The Medium is an interesting game. It follows the story of Marianne, a polish woman who can communicate with the spirits of dead people, as she receives a mysterious phone call and sets out to unravel its mystery.

They made the unusual choice to focus on telling the story without being restricted to a single gameplay style, so there are elements of point-and-click adventure, third-person survival horror, stealth, and even hidden object. Overall it's not super dynamic, but the variety keeps it interesting. Marianne can move back and forth between the spirit and physical worlds, and the player uses this ability to solve problems and advance the plot.

The story is dark, well-written and well presented - it's neither obvious and tropey nor obtuse and incomprehensible.

If you're up for a good (although dark, did I say dark?) story with a few scares and don't require too much action, The Medium might be for you.

The setting and story alone are worth your time.
It's a supernatural mystery with very nice atmosphere, that unique dual character / world mechanic that you see in the trailers which is used for exploration and puzzle solving and great voice acting.

The weakest part of it is the gameplay, which is not bad for this genre of games, but nothing to write home about.

For 100%, the game doesn't have a chapter select feature, and it has many missable collectibles that all need to be collected in 1 playthrough. If you want to avoid multiple playthroughs, I suggest to use a guide from the start.