The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan Review

I’m reviewing The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan today. I like my decisions to come with consequences. The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan presents some strong ones, including one that determines whether or not I get to see Shawn Ashmore speared through the chest with a rusty spike. Man of Medan is a serious and brooding horror game that starts off slow but maintains a welcome sense of dread.

A meaningful choice-and-consequence system makes a second or even third playthrough alluring. Particularly when playing online co-op, where you each control one character and independently make decisions with the potential to fuck everything up.

When I played I did a co-op run with a fellow streamer, Staticreaction. She played the first character and i played as the second character choice. It is centered around a cast of young diving wannabes who end up stranded on a mysterious WW2 freighter, it does a great job of building tension with its grim atmosphere and regular sudden shocks. I never play until dawn before this. it was recommended to me by my stream friend, Handsomejesse.

Shawn Ashmore’s fun-loving Conrad and Chris Sandiford’s jittery Brad – they’re mostly unremarkable. But that’s never really mattered in a game where half the fun is watching all of them get the killed. I was surprised by how easy it is to get the characters killed. I went through all the stages of grief when I killed Conrad.

The ship which is made up of a series of bland and uninspired corridors. Fixed camera angles mean directing characters through doorways is awkward. I made comments of this when playing through it on Twitch. Which became a little irritating when I was lost. There was this sense of labyrinthian disorientation.

Man of Medan comes with shaping these characters’ fates through the decisions you make. Straightforward repercussions: if you are kind to a character, you will see that reflected in their actions – they’ll save you in a bind, for example – and they won’t if they absolutely hate you. These deaths did feel odd because quick-time events play a big part in Man of Medan’s action sequences. Thats how I got Conrad killed.

If you like this review and want to see more, you can click here.  My snapchat is Cara_lynn97. Twitter and Instagram are the same. I stream on twitch multiple days a week! Be sure to follow me to see the live playthroughs of games and anything else I might do and post online.