| “ | Bringing supernatural horror on board a ghost-ship adrift in the South Pacific.
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Man of Medan is the first installment of the first season of The Dark Pictures Anthology, serving as the series debut.
It is an interactive horror video game with supernatural horror elements developed by Supermassive Games and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment for a multi-platform release on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on August 30, 2019. An upgrade for the mentioned platforms as well as the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions were launched on September 28, 2022. It was released for the Nintendo Switch on May 4, 2023.
The game is based on the legend of the Ourang Medan, a ghost ship found in the Dutch East Indies with the entire crew dead.
Synopsis[]
Four friends and their skipper set sail on a holiday diving trip, with a rumoured WWII wreck to find. As the day unfolds, and a storm rolls in, their trip soon changes into something much more sinister and terrifying!
Plot[]
PrologueIn June, 1947, in the aftermath of World War II, an American warship docks at a Chinese port to load an unknown cargo. Two fellow privates, Joe and Charlie, awaiting the ship's departure, drink at a nearby market and pass the time at a training dummy and fortune teller. Back on the ship, the drunken boys start a fight, but they are stopped and arrested. At night, the ship is caught in a violent storm when lightning strikes it, which then hits the cargo. This causes fog to begin oozing from the cargo, slowly spreading through the ship. Soon, Joe and Charlie wake up after hearing gunshots outside the ship. The two begin to explore the suspiciously empty ship and find many dead bodies with frozen expressions of horror. Upon reaching one of the cargo holds, the guys hear gunfire and, armed, head for the next cargo hold, but get separated on the way. On reaching the hold, each of the duo sees the other dead, and then encounters menacing beings (Joe - his son and Charlie - the fortune teller) that kills them. The rest of the crew die as well and the emptied ship is left adrift in the ocean. Main StoryAs the prologue ends, the player enters the repository, where they are met by the Curator. He explains his role as a recorder of the player's story and talks about basic gameplay mechanics before saying goodbye. Throughout the game, the player interacts several times with the Curator, who summarizes the decisions made by them and offers them hints. Act 1 On Saturday[1] June 20, 2019, a group of young adults (couple Alex and Julia, their brothers Brad and Conrad, respectively, and their skipper Fliss) gather on a boat, the Duke of Milan, on which they embark on a dive trip to the South Pacific Ocean. Soon, the five find what they're looking for - the remains of a sunken WWII plane - after which Alex and Julia dive to explore it. Swimming in the wreck, they find a certain document, which the two take as a souvenir. Meanwhile, Conrad and Fliss, waiting for the couple to return, encounter a trio of fishermen whose boat was damaged in a collision with the Duke's recoil cable. The fishermen ask for reparation, to which Conrad begins taunting them by throwing money into the water, causing the angry fishermen to leave. Toward nightfall, the friends gather to discuss a document in which they find information about Manchurian Gold and decide to drive to the coordinates the next day. While the five are sleeping, the fishermen whom Conrad had pissed off earlier - Olson, Junior and Danny - sneak up on the Duke and take everyone hostage except Brad, who managed to hide. While the pirates are busy threatening Fliss, Conrad, Alex, and Julia come up with a plan - to attack the pirates or escape by speedboat for help - that could end with either Conrad's death, his escape, or recapturing the protagonists. Searching the Duke, the pirates find a document of the Manchurian Gold and head for the coordinates, only to discover the long-lost WWII war frigate, the SS Ourang Medan. Act 2 The pirates board the ship, taking the protagonists with them. Before doing so, the trio takes the distributor cap, without which, as it later turns out, the Duke cannot operate and therefore the protagonists are unable to escape. Minutes after getting on the ship, the pirates lock the group in an empty room, but they quickly escape. They soon manage to find the cap, but when Fliss and possibly Brad try to get it back, Danny catches them. From that moment on, the protagonists are divided into two main groups and begin to encounter supernatural apparitions on the ship. The first group (Fliss and Brad) is led by Danny through the workshop. Due to the atmosphere of the ship, the pirate gradually falls into a panic and ends up fleeing from an unseen threat. The protagonists continue on their way and find themselves in Cargo Hold 3, where Fliss gets cut off from the way back. Going further, she enters Cargo Hold 2, where she is reunited with Brad, who has either caught up with Fliss or has gotten out of The Duke and gone in search of his friends. Upon meeting, the two may not recognize each other, seeing each other's place as a sinister threat (Fliss - The Grim Reaper and Brad - an undead soldier) and try to kill. Otherwise, Brad and Fliss together continue to search for the others. The second group (Alex, Julia and Conrad) follows the first and enters the main deck, where Conrad accidentally separates from the group. He wanders into the officers' quarters where he is pursued by an attractive sailor girl who turns into a creepy old woman. Conrad tries to get away from her and may die, but in any case it turns out that the sailor girl was actually Fliss/Brad. At the same time, Alex and Julia, searching for Conrad, encounter Olson in Cargo Hold 1, whom they see as a creepy monster (Alex - Olson's drowned body and Julia - Alex's evil double). The duo tries to escape from the mad pirate and during the chase one of them may be killed. Otherwise, Alex and Julia successfully escape from Olson and reunite with whoever is alive between Brad, Conrad and Fliss. Act 3 After regrouping, the protagonists travel to the radio room and contact the military. Unfortunately for the group, they don't have time to ask for help as the radio shuts down due to a lack of power. Two of the five go down to the lower decks and start the generator. Along the way, they also reveal the mystery of the Ourang Medan - turns out that the Manchurian Gold is actually a biochemical weapon, a leak of which caused the ship's crew to hallucinate and kill each other (which happened to Joe and Charlie). Trying to get out of the engine room, the protagonists encounter the hallucinating Olson. They manage to escape from the pirate only to immediately run into the hallucinating Junior. During the scuffle, one of the protagonists may die or the two manage to calm down Junior with the rebreather (if they picked it up earlier). The further course of the game follows one of two ways and depends on the player's decisions: If Alex is alive and is with someone in the radio room, hearing gunshots, the two will go down to check. Downstairs, they run into Olson and, noticing he has the distributor cap, begin to pursue the pirate, but on the way the protagonists split up. Alex continues to follow Olson alone and, upon reaching the kitchen, he finds the corpse of the pirate, who died due to the effects of Manchurian Gold. Alex tries to retrieve the distributor cap, which the rats can prevent him from doing so, and then he leaves the kitchen. On the way out, however, Alex first hallucinates a mutant or a bloody Olson (who is actually another protagonist) and then a rat emerging from his stomach. Alex can attack one of the hallucinations, which leads to the death of the respective character; otherwise, Alex will come to his senses and both protagonists will return to the others. If Alex went down after the generator, dead, or alone in the radio room, hearing gunshots, one of the protagonists will go down to check. Their path will lead to Cargo Hold 2, where they find a hallucinating Olson. A fight ensues, which is then entered by one of the protagonists who came down for the generator. During the fight, both Olson and the protagonist fighting him can die being killed by each other, split in half by cargo door, or electrocution. The distributor cap can be saved or destroyed as well. In the end, either both protagonists will return to the others, one of them will return, or both of them will die. EndingsAll surviving characters are reunited on the weather deck. Their future fate depends on the player's decisions and has four versions:
In a post credit scene, the group recounts their experiences on the ship or mourns their deceased friends. After that, the player meets with the Curator for the last time, where he comments on their ending and the number of survivors. The Curator bids the player farewell, promising that they will meet again in Little Hope or elsewhere, followed by a short teaser announcing the second installment in the anthology, Little Hope. |
Gameplay[]
See The Dark Pictures Anthology#Gameplay for full gameplay of the anthology.
Man of Medan has a strict auto-save system that prevents the player from reloading the save file to an earlier point in the game if they want to change their decision. The only way to do this is either by starting a new game or by playing chapters separately (available after completing the game), while giving the player the option to overwrite an old file or create a new one. After the update, Man of Medan allows the player to reload save files without requiring a full playthrough.
To see all the content in the game, the player must pass it multiple times on different paths and scenarios. Moreover, the game involves a permanent death mechanic, which means the loss of a character forever if they died. Thus, Man of Medan provides numerous outcomes and endings for each character. The installment is fairly short and take 4-5 hours to complete, though in Shared Story, it's shorter due to players playing multiple chapters at the same time.
Conrad must decide whether to escape by speedboat or fight back. His choice will have big repercussions.
Throughout the game, the player is constantly faced with moral dilemmas ranging from the usual dialogues to life and death situations (run or fight, attack or not, etc.). For these cases, the player has a moral compass that offers them two or three choices for the answer - act rationally ("Head"), act emotionally ("Heart"), or say/do nothing. However, the time to choose is limited, about 5-10 seconds depending on the situation. Man of Medan utilizes a system of "bearings" that record any choice of action made by the player, which may have great consequences later on and are able to affect the outcome of the game.
The gameplay is focused on exploration, quick-time events (usual and Keep Calm segments) and discovering collectibles. The latter include pictures that show possible future events and secrets that reveal the lore and help to reveal the tragedy of the SS Ourang Medan. An in-game system keeps track of all discovered collectibles, making them always available to the player, regardless of their current playthrough. Collecting all or specific secrets, as well as completing the game, rewards the player with bonus content that provides additional information about the game's lore and development.
Finally, Man of Medan offers players four game modes: single-player, which allows to play the game from a main (Theatrical Cut) or alternate (Curator's Cut) perspective, and multiplayer, which allows two players online (Shared Story) or two to five players offline (Movie Night) to play the game.
Since the upgraded and enhanced version was released, new game mechanics from other installments (specifically Little Hope and House of Ashes) have been added in Man of Medan. First of all, difficulty levels - Forgiving (Easy), Challenging (Normal), and Lethal (Hard) - which affects the speed of the QTEs and Keep Calm segments. The player can change the difficulty settings at any point in time while in a playthrough. QTE alerts have been added and aiming QTEs have been changed as well. Also, during action scenes, a switch between protagonists are added.
Characters[]
Man of Medan follows five young adults (four American tourists and their French Polynesian skipper) who went to the South Pacific Ocean for a summer dive trip, only to find an abandoned warship SS Ourang Medan. The supporting cast includes several characters in post-World War II era, a group of pirates who tried to rob the protagonists, and numerous paranormal visions aboard the abandoned ship.
Protagonists[] |
Antagonists[] |
Supporting Characters[]
Soundtrack[]
In-Game Music[]
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Other Music[]
- Intro - A Conversation with Death
- Credits - O'Death (by Gangstasgrass feat. Brandi Hart, Liquid and R-Son)
Development[]
The game was first introduced with a small trailer on August 21, 2018,[2] which released in some Supermassive Games' social media pages (such as YouTube), showing the five protagonists and some of the key locations during the story. It is also known the title of the entire anthology in which Man of Medan, as the first installment of this new and big project, is part of: The Dark Pictures Anthology.
Fliss and Brad in the playable demo.
Later on, a little gameplay[3] was released on August 22 during Gamescom 2018. The gameplay showed a preview of the game and its mechanics, such as the Bearings (similar to Until Dawn's "Butterfly Effect") in which the characters of the Curator (only the voice), Fliss, Brad, and Danny are presented in the chapter based on the fourth named character.
On Halloween, Supermassive Games released a new and extended trailer[4] compared with the first and official one, in celebration of that same date. This one finally showed the appearance that The Curator would take, as he is one of the most important characters in anthology, being the arc that develops across it.
On November 28, Supermassive released on the first Development Diary (Designing the Ghost Ship - Part 1)[5] on YouTube. They explained there the importance of some of the visual elements, such as the camera angles, lighting, atmospherics, the need to develop fear of the unknown, and the growth and/or evolution of this key factors. On December 5, the second part[6] was released, where the importance of the freighter's interaction with the player is clarified, the realism necessary to create an immersive experience.
The gloom of a ghost ship.
In 2019, the Development Diary got a new section titled "A Watery Grave"[7], also divided into two[8] parts, which were released on March 29 and April 4, respectively. There, the importance of how difficult it is to emphasize the ocean and its movement, since it uses a lot of "time CG." There's a big importance to the reaction that the characters/objects have regarding the waves of the water, the reciprocity between both elements. For that to happen, the actors had to act on a movable floor that made that situation real. The five protagonists had a small presentation on the anthology's official Instagram page at the beginning of 2019. It showed that every and each single one of them could live or die, all depending on the player's decisions. Same fate as the teenagers from Until Dawn had in their horrifying adventure.
Sailor Girl's cosplay, at PAX East 2019.
At the end of March-April, the game showed the same footage it showed during Gamescom 2018, but this time at PAX East 2019, for all those who didn't try the game yet. Their mission this time was to promote the anthology more and more to the point of becoming popular, more than before. They also counted with the influencers Hannah and Leah Stacey[9], two very daring twins who set out to haunt the video game event in search of all intrepid and brave discoverers of the game. All dressed in as one of the scariest features of the game, the Sailor Girl.
On May 21, the team finally raised the official release date with a small trailer[10] that would cover several of the locations during the story, such as the Duke of Milan and the SS Ourang Medan. The first installment of the anthology would arrive on August 30.
Ship located in Hamburg, Germany.
Two months later, on July 11, Supermassive would host some of the most popular content creators in two of its venues (both British and American)[11] in order to get more details of the title and play two new chapters: Ghost Story and Intrusion, in this case. The visit would consist of a small tour of the facilities of a huge ship to the protagonist in the game, with a couple of scares along the way.
A few days before the launch of the game, some videos were posted on the official Supermassive Games YouTube channel in which one of the main stars of the game (Shawn Ashmore) was interviewed alongside the game director, Tom Heaton[12]. New gameplay features would also be specified days later. This time, it would not only be cross-platform unlike Until Dawn, but would also feature online and offline multiplayer modes, both better known as Shared Story and Movie Night. Two individual modes would also be included in the game, which would allow the player to enjoy two different perspectives in each one of them: Theatrical Cut and Curator's Cut[13]. The Curator's Cut would only be available three months after the game's release or for players who pre-ordered, in which they can access the mode after completing the main story.
Tom and Shawn going into game details.
During the development process, Tom Heaton stated it was "a couple of years, and maybe a little bit longer in the development phase. We did eighteen months of writing it, developing the scripts, the branching elements... Then we've got Shawn and the other actors in, do the performance capture, and maybe another year putting all together," all explained without lack of details alongside Ashmore himself, in a Bandai Namco press conference a few days before the release of the title.
A new and last launch trailer[14] would come later, on August 28, to present the final concept of the game, and for those who didn't realize of its existence.
On September 28, 2022[15], Man of Medan along with Little Hope were launched for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. The versions for the older platforms have been updated as well, getting better graphics, new gameplay features and even an extended playable chapter. On May 4, 2023, Man of Medan was released on Nintendo Switch.
Reception[]
General ratings of the game.
The game obtained general and favorable reviews for the PC version, while the other two, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions, were met with mixed and/or average reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic.
Man of Medan was the third best-selling game in the United Kingdom in its week of release, behind Astral Chain and Wreckfest. During that same week, 81% of the game's retail copies were sold on PlayStation 4, versus 19% on Xbox One. However, the game didn't reach the same level of physical sales in comparison to Supermassive's 2015 title Until Dawn, selling 61% fewer physical copies at launch than the PlayStation 4 exclusive.
As for fans, the biggest complaint the game got was the number of hours in which the story lasted, since the 2015 horror title lasted approximately 8 hours, while this new one would arrive at approximately 4 hours. Another complaint was some of the new mechanics such as the "Keep Calm," since in Until Dawn the DualShock 4 had to remain still, and that added pressure, which was a great point for a "terrifying experience." In Man of Medan, as the game is multi platform, the player had to press a button according the "heart beats" on the screen.
Overall, the game received a lot of positive reviews from both experts and fans, who supported the first chapter of a promising series of horror stories.
Awards[]
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| Best Action and Adventure Game | Won | ||
| Best Audio Design | Nominated | ||
| Creativity Award | Nominated | ||
| Best Social Game | Won | ||
| Best Multiplayer Game | Nominated | ||
| Animation, Technical | Nominated | ||
| Camera Direction in a Game Engine | Nominated | ||
| Direction in a Game Cinema | Nominated | ||
| Lighting/Texturing | Nominated | ||
| Visual Innovation of the Year | Nominated | ||
| Narrative Innovation of the Year | Won | ||
| Performer in a Supporting Role (Ayisha Issa) | Nominated |
Special Releases[]
Press Kit Edition[]
The Press Kit Edition[21] is a limited edition release of Man of Medan. It features a copy of the game, a book-shaped hardcover packaging with the characteristic symbols of the anthology, as well as a paper with some key facts, a skull-shaped clipboard with the wind rose, and a trio of ultra rare pocket watches, similar to The Curator's. It is available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Russian.
Volume 1 Edition[]
The Volume 1 Edition is a collection bundle featuring copies of both Man of Medan and Little Hope, as well as their respective pins (ship and poppet), a cloth map, and a 4-disc steelbook.
Triple Pack Edition[]
The Triple Pack Edition is a collection bundle featuring copies of Man of Medan, Little Hope, and House of Ashes, as well as pins (ship, poppet, and eclipse), a cloth map, and a 4-disc steelbook.
System requirements[]
Trivia[]
References[]
Shroud of Innocence, a book about the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.
- References to Man of Medan appear in other installments of The Dark Pictures Anthology:
- In The Devil in Me: the pictures hanging around the hotels; The dog named Connie.
- Man of Medan contains many references to the other installments in The Dark Pictures Anthology:
- References to Little Hope: Julia's book about witch trials; Conrad's tank top with the words "Salem, 1692, Massachusetts"; a soldier called Arthur Miller, who shares the same name with the author of "The Crucible", a play about witch trials.
- References to House of Ashes: an article in the 1947 Newspaper about a missing expedition; Conrad's joke about Dracula family in caskets.
- References to The Devil in Me: Conrad's nickname, Connie; Brad's ghost story; an article in the 1947 Newspaper about the murder of a gangster near a hotel; the Ritual Book.
Other[]
- "MAN OF MEDAN" logo is written in Trajan Pro 3 Regular font.
- Man of Medan is the only installment released in the 2010s.
- The title of the game is the literal translation of the ship's name - "Ourang" means "Man" in Malay (also roughly translated from "Orang" in Indonesian), while "Medan" is the capital city of the province North Sumatra in Indonesia.
- In 2019, Man of Medan was Supermassive Games's most branching game narratively, even much more than Until Dawn.
- The debug mode in the game (only accessible for those who possess the review version of the game) include the ability to skip to the desired scene and to check the possible decisions that have could been made along the way.
Gallery[]
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Videos[]
References[]
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| The Dark Pictures Anthology | |||||||
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| Installments |
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| Spin-offs | |||||||