Bandai Namco revealed their cooperation with Supermassive Games during Gamescom, resulting in The Dark Pictures, an anthology filled with horror stories. Man of Medan is the first in The Dark Pictures and offers an homage to classic horror stories. Gore isn’t the keyword here, this franchise wants to do things differently and after being able to play this first episode, I think it’s something a lot of gamers were waiting for.
Teenagers cruising around
Man of Medan is the first in The Dark Pictures line. It’s an anthology, meaning that the franchise will eventually offer different stories and different experiences. You can compare it to a good Netflix show where you don’t necessarily have to watch the episodes in the right order (I’m looking at you Dark Mirror). The Dark Pictures Anthology wants to deliver something new to the public. Instead of creating a vast and big new horror game, the team decided to focus on shorter stories instead, focussing on certain classic legends or classic horror elements. It’s an homage to the genre above all so don’t expect a lot of gore, instead, expect a lot of classic horror elements and even some good old clichés.
Take this Man of Medan for example. The story starts with a bunch of reckless teenagers on a ship, looking for sunken treasure. They find a mysterious sunken ship but needless to say, they bitt off more than they could chew. Although we only saw flashes of the story, it’s clear that the group of teenagers was attacked by others and they even manage to find a ghost ship. The demo started on this ghost ship where nothing is as it seems.
A dark secret
During my hands-on with the game, I played as an attractive underdressed young woman who was being held hostage by a stranger. The stranger forced her to move around on the Medan (the name of the ship) but soon he discovered that nothing is as it seems on this mysterious ship. It doesn’t take long before we stumble upon our first dead body, a disaster if you know that those who die on a ship, never leave the ship, or that’s what legends make us believe anyway. What followed was walking around in this haunted ship looking for clues and ways to survive, all while facing the occasional jump scare from time to time.
It’s clear that Supermassive Games used their experience of creating dark games such as Until Dawn to bring this mysterious world to life. The games look similar visually speaking, meaning the characters interact in a natural way and you believe what they are saying thanks to their realistic expressions. But that’s not all. Just like in Until Dawn the player’s choices are crucial for the unfolding of the story. At regular times, you’re forced to make decisions, there’s no time to overthink, the game tries to find out how you’ll perform under stress and creates a certain profile of the person who’s playing. For example, if you choose to save your own life without even trying to save the life of your friends, this might have consequences later on. The developers already confirmed there’s way more branching than in Until Dawn, resulting in different and unique experiences for everybody playing.
Early conclusion:
It looks like Bandai Namco and Supermassive Games are onto something with The Dark Pictures Anthology. Instead of creating another one of those gore horror games, they focus on the classic elements and create dark but interesting stories set in a classic environment. Man of Medan offered an interesting first taste of what is yet to come and after playing it, I can’t wait to see what kind of consequences my choices will have.
