The Medium is the latest Bloober Team offering to hit Xbox Series X | S and Xbox Game Pass outbound. Very pleasantly surprising those who have already managed to play it, especially fans of terror from the 90s and 00s. Since Bloober Team presented The Medium, users did not take long to compare it with the Silent Hill saga for its history, design and setting. The music of Akira Yamaoka, famous composer of Team Silent, was key for fans to remember the Konami saga and start the comparisons. However, despite the similarities between the two titles, The Medium is not Silent Hill nor does it pretend to be. And we tell you why.
The parallels between the Medium and Silent Hill
Although The Medium is not Silent Hill, it is evident that it contains many elements of this saga. And that could even be considered a “spiritual sequel spin-off.” The Medium presents the story of Marianne, a medium who comes to the Niwa Hotel after receiving a call from a man, who assures her that he knows many details of her past. A premise that is very similar to that of Silent Hill 2, a game in which James Sunderland goes to the town of Silent Hill after receiving a letter from his late wife, Mary.
The similarities between The Medium and Silent Hill 2 don’t end there. Some savvy fans have already seen certain Easter eggs from Konami’s game on The Medium. For example, in a notebook, we find the message ” I feel pathetic and ugly “, a quote that appears in the letter from Mary Sunderland.
We also find other details such as the use of mirrors, lighting, psychological terror and even the origins of Maw, which have certain parallels with the original Pyramid Head of Silent Hill 2. Jacek Zieba, the producer of The Medium, clearly confessed in an interview that The Medium had been inspired by Silent Hill and Resident Evil, so none of this takes us by surprise.
2021 The medium🌾 silent hill 2002 pic.twitter.com/fTaZMTCQuu
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In my wildest dreams, I see that city
Now, The Medium is not Silent Hill simply because it reminds us of Silent Hill 2. In fact, The Medium and Silent Hill take completely different paths, despite starting from a very similar point. For starters, the concept of the Otherworld of Silent Hill varies according to the games. In the first trilogy (Silent Hill, Silent Hill 3 and Silent Hill Origins) the Otherworld reflects the fears and horrors lived by Alessa Gillespie. Silent Hill 2 breaks this line by presenting an Otherworld created by that guilt and that past from which he is fleeing.
Something that we reveal later in Silent Hill: Homecoming and Silent Hill Downpour. However, Silent Hill 4 completely departs from the above, because in this game the protagonist is not even the protagonist of the game and the Otherworld has a completely different origin and cause. That is, there is no clear line of argument as to what the Otherworld is or means. It varies depending on the game and the circumstances. Even in the same game, we can see how that Otherworld is different in characters that coincide and coexist at the same moment, as is the case of James, Angela and Eddie.
It all starts with a dead girl
But The Medium is not Silent Hill or any of the above. The Otherworld is a reality that coexists with the real one, although only Marianne can see it. It is not that there is the Other World that attracts certain people, for different reasons depending on the game in question, but that there is an other world that is real and exists, although it is not seen. Marianne is a protagonist who is born with the special gift of seeing that Spirit World, something that separates her from the protagonists of Silent Hill, who are simply normal and ordinary characters that, for one reason or another, end up in Silent Hill.
Therefore, the Spiritual World of The Medium affects the real one and vice versa. Which does not happen in Silent Hill, because the Otherworld is only created for the person who can perceive it. If you played Silent Hill 2, you will remember Laura walking quietly through the town, without seeing any monsters. Or, if you enjoyed Silent Hill 3, you will not have forgotten the mythical phrase of Vincent that went down in the history of the saga, in which he asks Heather “do they look like monsters to you?”, Suggesting that he does not see the creatures in the same way, if you see them.
On the contrary, everything that happens in the Spiritual World of The Medium is reflected in the real one and vice versa, because both are two sides of the same coin. Also, let’s not forget that The Medium also offers two versions of the Spirit World. Marianne sees one world and Thomas another, the two being equally real, because they are not on the same plane. In addition, Marianne and Thomas are always aware of that gift they have and of the existence of two realities. Something that does not happen to Harry, James, Heather and other protagonists, who find it increasingly difficult to differentiate in what plane of reality they are.
Also, at a certain point, The Medium takes a surprising course with which it ends up moving away from Silent Hill. Bloober Team assured that the game would reflect the history of Poland and is true to its word. However, Silent Hill always stays in the spiritual and psychological terrain defined by its protagonists but does not cover other topics.
As a consequence of all the above, the visual design is much more varied and rich than that of the Otherworld of Silent Hill. In The Medium, we find tentaculesque worlds, gardens or even butchers, while in Silent Hill we find several levels of the Otherworld, but they offer less variety. And this has a very simple explanation: in The Medium we know the realities of several characters, while in Silent Hill we know only that of the protagonist. In this sense, we could say that The Medium is a spiritual sequel to Observer rather than Silent Hill, with which it shares more than one parallel.
Conclusion: The Medium is neither Silent Hill nor does it pretend
Therefore, despite its similarities, The Medium is not Silent Hill nor does it pretend to be. It is true that it takes many references, but we also find details of titles such as Alone in The Dark or Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Both The Medium and Silent Hill can be included in the genre of psychological horror, but this does not mean that Bloober Team has tried to copy the spirit of Konami. Games evolve and, with them, stories. And it is inevitable that the creators of The Medium, who were players of survival horror titles at the time, will be influenced by such. Like Konami, it was influenced by Resident Evil and Alone in The Dark, this being the first survival horror in history.
What do you think? Do you think The Medium is Silent Hill or do they seem like different games?