![]() I once “accidentally” lost a character that turned out to be fairly crucial to my understanding of the game’s story, and I didn’t find that out until my second or third time through the game. ![]() That means that making different decisions might send you to entirely new sections of the ship you didn’t originally see. Man of Medan doesn’t end when someone dies instead, the story shifts and changes to adapt to the new size of the group. That constant uncertainty becomes even more frustrating when playing through the story multiple times. What’s the point of telling a character in a horror movie not to go down those stairs, dammit, if they listen, turn around, and are killed anyway? I often felt like a powerless spectator instead of an active participant in the story. I didn’t feel responsible for what happened, since the results of each decision felt so arbitrary. While that uncertainty was fun at first, Man of Medan’s surprises and tragedies eventually lost their sting. The game has a sense of unpredictability that quickly made me second-guess each choice, leading to even more tension. And sometimes those decisions may also come with hidden consequences. Supermassive Games/Bandai Namco EntertainmentĮach decision impacts not just the characters’ fates, but the places they go, the people they like, and the conversations they have along the way. Missing a button press, or making the wrong decision, might be fatal. Other action scenes ask you to choose between options like running or fighting back, and quick-time events often determine how those decisions play out. Each scene gives you control of one character, and you pick just about every line they say from a series of dialogue choices. The exploration of the ship is sometimes interrupted by cutscenes in which the characters try to piece together the ship’s mysteries while coming up with an escape plan. The papers, letters, journals, and official memos you discover reveal the mystery of the ship - although, as with many mysteries, the solution is much less exciting than the hints. The story of the Ourang Medan, and how it came to be a ghost ship filled with these bodies, is told in pieces found throughout the cabins. The constant unease made me excited, and nervous, to explore each new room as the game found new ways to increase my discomfort. But Man of Medan’s camera follows your movements just enough to let you explore the room while allowing the developers to show you exactly what they want you to see, in the most effective way possible. Static cameras can be frustrating to the player if used poorly. These moments of stillness lead to fantastic and unsettling images, including a shot in which the camera seems to peer at our characters from behind the head of a corpse that slowly turns to look at them, or a rusted chain and hook looming in the foreground as people explore the room behind it. Each one will stand alone, however, so this doesn’t set up the series outside of the framing device, and you’ll be able to jump in with any game without having played the ones that came before. The games will be linked by a character called the Curator (Shawn Ashmore), who acts as a narrator and guide through the story of Man of Medan and teases future installments in the series. The idea behind the series is that with each entry, players will get to control a new cast of characters, in a new setting, with new horrors and mysteries to uncover. Man of Medan is part of a series that Supermassive is calling the Dark Pictures Anthology. They’re soon abducted by a group of fishermen turned pirates, but a massive storm interrupts the attack and forces both the pirates and the group of friends to take cover in a mysterious ghost ship called the Ourang Medan. These friends - who are apparently pretty wealthy - rent a boat and have a local captain take them out to the site. This particular story begins when four friends go on a diving trip to search for a crashed World War II plane. The decisions you make for them will help them survive. The game gives you control over its characters, allowing you to choose where they go, what they do, and what they say. Like Until Dawn, Man of Medan sits somewhere on the line between a Choose Your Own Adventure book and a horror movie. The developer’s latest game, The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan, also lets players exercise that part of their brain by giving them control of a fantastic and (mostly) likable cast of characters as they make their way through a horrific ghost ship. Everyone has an urge to shout warnings at horror movie characters, even though we know they can’t hear us.ĭeveloper Supermassive Games is very aware of this compulsion, and used it well in the underrated Until Dawn.
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