As an avid horror fan, the Dark Pictures anthology series has been a blessing. While I enjoy gaming, I am not amazing at combat or difficult puzzles. Because of this, I just had to try out all games in the series as they came out. Man of Medan was released all the way back in 2019 and you can definitely see it was the first pancake so to speak. Let’s dive in and find out why shall we? 

Plot

The story takes from the legend of SS Ourang Medan, a ghost ship from World War II times. Five young adults embark on a scuba diving journey to see a wrecked plane. Things take turn for the worse when they run into people with bad intentions. The group ends up trapped on the Ourang Medan and it’s not long before they start seeing ghosts of the ship’s past. Will they make it out in one piece or will the evil entities consume them? One will have to play to find out the ship’s secrets and what lies beneath the surface. 

Characters

I’ll be honest, the characters are not super likable. Conrad and Julia are more or less just spoiled rich brats who seem quite out of touch with how the real world works. Alex doesn’t have much development apart from his relationship with Julia and Brad is sweet but a bit bland overall. Fliss is probably my least favorite as her characterization seems a bit inconsistent and the voice acting does not help. There is a lot of focus on relationships, to the point where maxing one out is a trophy, but they don’t have that much of an effect on the story (except Alex and Julia).

Gameplay

This section is the downfall of Man of Medan. You can clearly see that it was the company’s first attempt at an interactive movie type of game (not counting Until Dawn as that was backed up by Sony). The gameplay is janky with scenes cutting off at weird points and characters popping up in places they weren’t at a second ago. One of the trophies is also glitched, making platinum impossible for those who take the gaming endeavor that seriously (I believe it is now patched up but cannot confirm 100%). 

Final thoughts

All in all, I still admire Man of Medan and the precedent it sets up for the rest of the anthology. Gameplay troubles aside, it is still an enjoyable adventure with a quite fair branching-out system that actually provides multiple endings for the story. I would absolutely recommend it.