I’ve been meaning to play Until Dawn for quite a while now. It’s sitting on my PS4’s harddrive, staring at me whenever I boot up that week’s review game. After playing an E3 demo of Supermassive Games’s newest title, The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan, I feel a lot more compelled to try their previous game out. I’m a sucker for 80’s/90’s horror films, and Man of Medan feels like the game for me.
I played Man of Medan’s demo at the same time as former Editor-in-Chief and current Bodacious-Brosky, William Saw, with the intent of finishing the demo and comparing our endings to see the depth of Medan’s choices and consequences. For the unaware, Man of Medan is like TellTale’s The Walking Dead in the way it approaches choices. What you choose to do in the limited time you have to make a decision can affect the characters around you, leading to different story paths and even character deaths. And while the demo Will and I played was fairly short, we both ended up with radically different endings.
“I was surprised to hear that things went so differently for Will, as I had (cynically) assumed that different choices would all lead to the same outcome, as they do in some lesser choice-based games.“
The demo begins with some carefree young adults just having a good time while vacationing on a boat in the open sea, as all us young adults do. When they go to bed, their boat is attacked by aggressive and armed fishermen, setting the “home invasion”-esque plot in motion. In my playthrough, I was (shockingly) incredibly flippant and snarky towards my kidnappers. This led to Shawn Ashmore’s character getting beaten up, and getting part of his ear cut off with pliers. I then had him steal the fishermen’s motorboat to go find help.
Will, on the other hand, was entirely compliant and cautious when it came to dealing with the bootleg pirates. No earlobes were lost, and there was far less aggression all-around. Shawn didn’t take the boat either, so I have no idea as to whether or not help would come for his crew later in the game. I was surprised to hear that things went so differently for Will, as I had (cynically) assumed that different choices would all lead to the same outcome, as they do in some lesser choice-based games.
On another note, Man of Medan looks incredibly realistic, yet somehow largely avoids the uncanny valley effect. I’m quite impressed with how the game looks, as it definitely adds to the “slasher flick” vibe that I find so appealing.
When The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan comes out for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC on August 30th, I think I’ll have to check it out. It’s been a while since a choice-based narrative game made me feel both excited and spectacularly uneasy, but I can’t wait to feel that way again.
