The Medium - A Spiritual Successor to Silent Hill?
In this video, I discuss the upcoming potential psychological horror thriller, The Medium. Developed by the team behind Layers of Fear, Observer and The Blair Witch - this has the potential to rekindle the themes from the Silent Hill series, and provide us with a deeper, more complex scare.
Music by: Emit Finn and Alge
Produced by: Chris Kernaghan
Support from: Pippa Kernaghan
Silent Hill fans like myself across the globe live in hope, possibly delusional hope, that the series will make a return to our screens in some form or other. Those rumours of a PS5 exclusive Silent Hill, "Project Zero", don't seem to be going away - but as it stands, they are indeed just rumours, unsubstantiated, and from questionable sources. It's fun to speculate as always, and we live in hope.
Meanwhile, the gaming industry continues to turn, and developers, both large and small, have been doing an exceptional job at creating fear on their own terms. They've gone some way to fill the void from Silent Hill's absence, for some, even surpassing its legacy as a horror masterpiece. Darkwood, Outlast, Soma - games of genuine terror, and existential horror, that remains with us long after we switch our screens off.
However, we potentially have a real contender, a real spiritual successor to Silent Hill. A game which not only has similarities aesthetically, but thematically as well. And it also happens to have one member from Team Silent on board, the legendary musician Akira Yamaoka.
That game, is #TheMedium.
The similarities are quite striking, and it's clear that Bloober Team has taken inspiration from Team Silent. If you're unfamiliar with Bloober Team's work, they're certainly not new to the horror genre, producing excellent titles such as Layers of Fear, Observer and Blair Witch. With The Medium however, Dual realities, supremely dark gothic tones, and an abandoned town all point to Silent Hill as the source of this new product of panic. Including the defining element of Silent Hill, fog. Lots, and lots of fog. The Medium takes place in Poland, some time during the 1980s, and our lead character Marianne is struggling and trying to overcome psychological issues.
Throughout the reveal trailer, we see an emotional Marianne in turmoil, as she tries to come to terms with her split reality. The split reality, or otherworld, has been a staple within the Silent Hill series since its inception. It has always represented a fairly abstract concept, remaining ambiguous, though we can theorise they're manifestations of personal hell for each character within. In the case of The Medium, a heavily pregnant Marianne, who undergoes a routine scan, transitions from depicting potential joy to a depiction of sadness, as we see her praying. Why? We're not sure at this early stage. It's possible she lost her child, is in the depths of postnatal depression, or perhaps she gave birth after all and ended up with a similar fate to that of Rosemary from Polanski's Rosemary's Baby.
It's this potential link to Silent Hill which is the most convincing. Not the fear of monsters, but the fear of loss.
Marianne herself is the titular character of the game, having abilities to see into another realm and contact spirits from the otherworld. How that manifests, and how much control she has over that ability remains to be seen. What is particularly exciting is that both worlds, the normal and the dark world, are rendered at the same time - suggesting that the transition isn't predetermined by the game, but a core gameplay and puzzle element, the player can control in order to progress.
I recently made a video discussing my favourite Silent Hill game, Silent Hill 2. The title of the video, which you can watch here by the way, is "Will we ever see another game like Silent Hill 2"? I knew as I was writing the script, the answer was rather simple - no, we won't. I've come to terms with this, and determined it's unfair to measure all future horror games with the high bar set by this amazing 2001 title.
We live in the golden age of horror and phycological horror games, a prolific range of titles to keep us on the edge of our seats, and it's a reason to celebrate the creativity within the industry.
Silent Hill 2 was a one off, lightning in a bottle. But there's absolutely no reason why developers, large or small, can't create an equally outstanding title, but with their own interpretation and telling of tales that genuinely get under our skin. With that said, I for one am looking forward to what Bloober Team will deliver with The Medium, as one thing's for sure, they have the track history and the talent to ensure that it ends up being one of the scariest horror releases for quite some time.