Man of Medan is the first installment in the horror series from Supermassive - The Dark Pictures Anthology. The game's going to come out for PS4, Xbox One and PC through Steam tomorrow, and you can pre-order the game right this moment.
However, if you still want to keep your eyes sharp before purchasing the game, here's our in-depth review. You can give it a look, but mindful that there will be some slight spoilers.
Regardless, let's look at the launch trailer to catch the eerie vibes before getting into the details:
Rich dudes in Man of Medan have some crazy habits
The developer Supermassive has realized (mostly) everyone is eager to shout at the characters to warn them even though they can't hear it. They've effectively make benefits out of that concept in the underrated horror title Until Dawn, and it seems that they're continuing to do it with Man of Medan.
The game starts with a group of four friends on their "daring" adventure to the plane wreckage left from World War II. These youngsters seem to have little problems with money, as they even hire a boat and a local captain to set sail to the location. However, their ship gets pirated by a group of former-fishermen, putting the crew in dangers. Fortunately (or unfortunately), a huge storm suddenly come, forcing everyone to find a shelter in the abandoned ghost ship called Ourang Medan.
As a "ghost ship", Ourang Medan is full of dead bodies with terrifying poses and facial expressions. It looks like something extremely horrible has frightened them to death. Those bodies scatter every room in the ship, making a very deadly scenario. However, that's not the thing made to scare you.
In fact, you'll realize that the camera control showing the way you enter each cabin is the real thing that makes you scared. Man of Medan has properly used the mechanic of static camera settings, in which showing the whole eerie room from the behind of our head, looking at those corpses. It's like what you can see through your own eyes in real life. The more cabins you enter, the more scared you will be.
And then the hunting starts!
In those cabins, you'll find some clues about how the ship ended up in this situation. The story will be unfolded through the text from the papers, letters, or memos that you see in each room. Sometimes, cutscenes will pop out of nowhere, interfering your whole exploring experience. This happens as the characters trying to put the clues together to sketch the whole story and find a way to escape.
It's very rude to get deep into the contents of the game, so let's make it quick. All you should remember is that the mystery is going to be very twisting, but the hints to get you out of the ship is not even close from informative.
After that, you'll have to unravel this scary ship. There will be some action cutscenes that require you to make your decisions on, for example, running away or fighting back. Furthermore, the quick-time events will determine how will your decisions result in. Rather fatal or successful, that all depends on your reactions and preciseness.
Your decisions will not only affect the characters' lives but also the routes that they choose to follow. They include the locations to go, the people they're feeling good about, and the attitudes in their conversations in the future. Even more exciting as your choices could lead to hidden outcomes that you couldn't expect. Therefore, Man of Medan is worth several tries to find out all of the potential consequences.
Speaking about consequences, you can save everyone or kill everyone with your decisions. And the game actually doesn't end when your character dies. In fact, you'll switch to control another one, and the whole story will reshape to the current amount of members. This means making someone dies doesn't always negatively affect the outcome of the whole games. Sometimes, you will get a quick teleport to other parts of the ship that you can't see at first.
Hence, you don't have to always regret when you accidentally killed one character. That will be a plus or a minus, depending on what's your favorite when it comes to story-telling. However, that's the story of your second (or third) run, and you should consider it after getting through the whole game at least one time.
You'll have to make sacrifices to keep going
Some horror game attracts players by making them decide who to sacrifice. Killing someone for the sake of the remaining is always the paradox that horror titles have taken advantages of with their choice-driven mechanics. However, this scenario is almost non-existing in Man of Medan, as you're the one controlling this whole narrative.
To be more specific, at the start, you've always known which ones you want to push to death. This comes when I start caring about the members' characteristics, especially when the developer has done a good job portraying them.
For example, I really want to keep Julia - the girl that always soften the atmosphere by making bad jokes. On the contrary, I desperately hate Alex - a dickhead who's always full of himself. Therefore, when I have to choose one to sacrifice, Alex is always the one to get into the mouth of the zombies, krakens, or whatever the supernatural stuff is.
Remember when I speak about the attitudes of the characters toward the others can change the whole outcomes? This is when that part kicks in. If one character has a good feeling toward another, they will join hands and save each other from the sticky situations. On the other hand, if you can't stand a moment together, they will work separately at those scenes, or there will be no such scenes at all. Their relationship will keep developing through those events, in the way that you can control.
Last but not least, the game supports a multiplayer mode, in which you can sit on the bench with your friends to enjoy the eerie atmosphere. However, it's not using the split-screen mechanics, so you'll have to toss the controller back and forth to control certain characters. Everything is funnier with friends, right!
Summary
To cut the long story short, Man of Medan is one of few horror titles that let you write the whole story and enjoying the unexpectable outcomes at the same time. Thus, I highly recommend spending this weekend with your friends enjoying the game.
To remind you, Man of Medan does have a Curator’s Cut mode if you pre-order it. This mode allows you to play from other characters' perspective to unravel the whole story. But if you can't afford the game at this moment, wait for a while and Man of Medal will be free to play in the future - the developer promised.
Enjoy!