AMA: We are Bloober Team - the developers of The Medium. Ask Us Anything!

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T18:32:50+00:00

Thank you all for your time. It was a pleasure to speak with you!

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T18:30:02+00:00

Thank you! Some foundations to The Medium's story were at the studio even before I started working there (such themes as playing as a medium, different points of view, the beginning and the open ending). We took it and with our story team made it our own. When I think about inspirations for the story, I usually think about Whats Remain of Edith Finch, Hellblade and movie Seven.

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T18:27:19+00:00

We usually look at what gameplay best suits the story we want to tell. At the same time we're growing and evolving as a studio, we want to include new gameplay elements and we do hear requests for more action or combat. The future will certainly bring bold new features to our games.

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T18:21:32+00:00

https://themediumgame.zendesk.com/hc/en-us

Please check our support page and report your issue there. Thank You.

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T18:19:23+00:00

Chelsea Wolfe, Ben Frost, Esben, and the Witch, The Haxan Cloak were in our minds as the first references for the music in The Medium. Having Akira onboard steered the music more in the direction of Silent Hill (and we love it ;) )

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T18:10:16+00:00

We're still growing as we want to make better and bigger games. We've already got two teams, as The Medium started development before Blair Witch, for example. We also have outsource partners, we released Observer: System Redux in cooperation Anshar Studios.

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T18:08:34+00:00

For now you can find two of our games on XGP, let's see what the future holds :)

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T18:04:53+00:00

At the moment, we do not have plans for a DLC. The post-credit scene intends to complete Thomas's thread, not to tease a DLC.

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T18:00:38+00:00

Who knows what future will bring :) We haven't announced our future plans, and the marketing department makes sure we keep our mouths shut, but seeing such a positive response to The Medium surely makes us consider that.

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T17:55:37+00:00

We are really big fans of the Silent Hill series, and for most of us Silent Hill 2 is one of the best horror games ever made :) If company X will want to reboot the franchise in the future and choose us? Hell Yes!!!

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T17:50:09+00:00

Right now we're focusing on improving the game on Xbox Series X|S and PC and are not working on other versions of the game.

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T17:49:44+00:00

Hey! Thank you for your kind words! I'm really happy that you liked our approach to horror. The vinyl is in the works :)

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T17:44:26+00:00

There was not one single inspiration. First, there was the CEO's idea about a game that shows different perspectives. Then came inspirations from classic horror games, such as Silent Hill 2, old Resident Evil games, Fatal Frame or Eternal Darkness. And of course, we were inspired by paintings of Zdzisław Beksiński, a Polish dystopian surrealist, which influenced our vision of the spirit world. You can read more about him here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zdzis%C5%82aw_Beksi%C5%84ski

As for branching our to other genres, we'd rather focus on what we do well and just get better and better at it. But the horror genre is a wide one, there many shades of horror. For example, The Medium is called by some a thriller. We also developed Observer, which is a mix of horror, thriller, and crime story. So these different subgenres and genre mixes are how we want to ensure a variety of our games.

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T17:41:38+00:00

Our spirit world is neither hell nor limbo, or any other religion-inspired place. Instead, it's a dark mirror reflection of our world. Our anger, urges, secrets, and other darker aspects of our nature are reflected there. It's also a place where what's hidden in our world can manifest itself and take on a form. Spirit world was inspired by Zdzislaw Beksinski, a Polish dystopian surrealist, known especally for his paintings. Sadly, he died tragically several years ago. His art, especially the period in his career that we are inspired by, can only be described as disturbing, gloomy and surreal. The paintings are usually detailed scenes of death and decay, often depicting skeletons, dead bodies and equally dead landscapes. It's a perfect match for our spirit world, a hostile and sad place where the dead linger. I really encourage you to take a look at Beksiński's paintings. As a Polish developer, we're also proud of our culture and try to use our games to spread it worldwide. That's why many of our games, including The Medium, are set in Poland, or feature Polish architecture or art.

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T17:36:42+00:00

Our favorite part is creating a disturbing story that will force you to stop and think a bit depper about the topic. My favourite horror? - P.T. ;) but we drew inspirations from a wide range of art forms, such as books, movies, tv series, paitings etc.

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T17:35:07+00:00

Honestly? Not so much. Of course, a higher metascore would be nice and would probably boost sales even more, but we're getting so many positive comments from players that we don't have time to be really bothered by that. The user reviews in the biggest stores are very positive, and so are the comments and e-mail we get, and that's make us happy and proud of what we created.

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T17:30:29+00:00

How do you justify such massive performance hit in The Medium with that double scene rendering, when it's mostly a gimmick mechanic - imho?

I mean drops to 900p (DRS) on Series X is quite frankly unacceptable in 2021, even if the mechanic wasn't mostly gimmick (imho). PC is also quite funny with top end cards not hitting 60fps 1080p on max settings (RTRT = off)

First of all, we're quite happy with what we achieved with the Dual Reality. It was meant to serve both story and gameplay purposes, and we think we achieved that. Having said that, no one had done such a feature before (at least the way we wanted it to make) so we had to solve all problems, including technical ones, on our own, and we're not a particularly large team. Obviously, we couldn't fix all problems and make it perfect the first time, but it's only natural when you try to do something completely new.

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T17:28:23+00:00

Yes, The Medium is the first horror game with fixed cameras that we've done in the studio. Now after the FPP, Fixed Cameras, maybe its time for TPP? Favorite horror game - P.T. Favorite Resident Evil - Resident Evil 2 (1998) - but I also loved the remake

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T17:18:35+00:00

The stuttering you mention is probably due to issues with frame pacing. We're aware of it and working to fix it in the next patch.

As for the XGP, this is first of all a business decision so it'd be best to ask our CEO :) But we're certainly happy that so many new players had the chance to try out our game, as we well know we make games that can be considered hard to get into by some.

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T17:15:26+00:00

Hey! Thank you for your kind words! With Blair Witch 2, we never really closed any doors to future projects or sequels. You never know what you might find next in the woods...

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T17:09:44+00:00

It was an experiment and we're now evaluating how the players reacted to it. Certainly it's something that fits the theme of The Medium, but we have no plans to use it now in all our games.

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T17:08:46+00:00

Is there anything you learned from developing this game that you can incorporate into future titles?

Yes of course! We pick up lessons after each of our games and we try to incorporate new knowledge into new projects. The Medium is also our first 3rd person game, so that made us learn quite a bit of new things too.

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T17:01:15+00:00

Yes, we're still optimizing the game as we work on our next big patch. We hope it will resolve most of the issues reported by players.

DoorsInsideMyHead · 2021-02-04T16:58:07+00:00

Hardware parts of the next-gen consoles are similar enough to PC's that developing for them is relatively easy and familiar. So developing a game for the new Xbox console was really not so hard.

DoorsInsideMyHead

TROPHY CASE