The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan

High Expectations Supermassive Games impressed me a few years ago with the launch of the Playstation 4 exclusive Until Dawn, which followed a group of horror-movie inspired characters through a nightmarish plot on an isolated mountain peak. With its...

The next evolution of interactive...

The spiritual successor to Supermassive's horror adventure Until Dawn is a storytelling success, though PC port woes make release day a bit of a letdown.

If you can organize a session with someone else who owns the game and play through the whole thing together, it's an excellent experience; but if you're after another single-player horror narrative experience like the one offered in Until Dawn, it's very disappointing. As a show of the potential for the Dark Pictures Anthology, Man of Medan is largely a success, but as a first episode, it leaves plenty to be desired.

Man of Medan lacks the campy charm of Until Dawn, but still offers an unnerving horror adventure with consequences that felt directly linked to my actions. If you can get through its slow beginning twice, playing through with a co-op partner is a blast as you both properly explore its many branching storylines.

Despite how negative I may have seemed there, I do genuinely want The Dark Pictures Anthology to continue and succeed (the game even seems to tease the next entry in it, seemingly already in the works), as I loved Until Dawn and would love to see more similar experiences from Supermassive. But despite having the same solid mechanics as its big brother, Man of Medan starts the anthology off on a thoroughly “meh” note, thanks its unimpressive, poorly-constructed story. Hopefully things will improve by then, because an improved sequel to a slasher story can always be a rare and pleasant surprise.

The downside is that you can't predict the order in which characters will star, so some players might be left drumming their fingers for several chapters, but all the same, it's a clever addition to a surprisingly sociable formula. I look forward to assigning characters to family members in future Dark Pictures games, though next time, I'm hoping for a little more meat on the story's bones.

The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan is a solid beginning to what I hope becomes a memorable selection of virtual horror outings. The setting here didn't do much for me if I'm perfectly honest, but the memorable characters, razor sharp pacing and well-placed scares make it excellent fun with a few friends by your side.

Solid and definitely has an audience. There could be some hard-to-ignore faults, but the experience is fun.How we score:  The Destructoid reviews...

At its best, Man of Medan is every bit as gripping, beautiful, and giddily silly as Until Dawn, but technical issues, a rushed story, and a confusing approach to player choice betray the limited resources the game's creators had to work with. Man of...