The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan

 PlayStation 4
Metascore
69

Mixed or average reviews - based on 70 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 29 out of 70
  2. Mixed: 38 out of 70
  3. Negative: 3 out of 70
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  1. Jeuxvideo.com
    Aug 28, 2019
    45
    Man of Medan succeeds in bringing nice effects, several endings, good jumpscares and a good coop concept, but fails to bring pleasant optimization (uncanny valley syndrom, numerous loadings, freezes...). Plus, the writting isn't as good as it was in Until Dawn, and doesn't help us get involved in the story.
  2. Video Chums
    Aug 28, 2019
    40
    Hopefully, Supermassive Games can learn from what went wrong here and apply it to their next projects. For now, Man of Medan is simply not worth playing and I recommend skipping it entirely.
  3. Gamer.no
    Aug 28, 2019
    40
    Man of Medan has a couple of fun gimmicks, great faces and bunch of exciting moments spread throughout, but it's also filled with badly paced sequences, bland characters, annoying technical issues and cheap scares that are so frequent and so poorly executed that you can't help but feel offended and frustrated.
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  1. Eurogamer
    Aug 28, 2019
    Supermassive's Dark Pictures anthology gets off to a promising start, but this first nautical instalment winds up a little too promptly.
  2. Kotaku
    Aug 28, 2019
    I’m interested in playing Man of Medan with more groups of people to see where else its story could go, and to see if it reaches more satisfying ends than the one I got. Ultimately, though, I fear that it’s destined to be more of a cult classic than a blockbuster.
  3. Mashable
    Sep 2, 2019
    Man of Medan in particular is unique among horror games in giving you, the player, a ton of agency in shaping the story’s eventual outcome. You can’t dictate every single beat — where’s the thrill in that? — but you’re role-playing all of the potential victims. So when you sit down to play, find a way to live inside the story and just let the horror wash over you.
  5. The Jimquisition
    Sep 3, 2019
    Like a Quantic Dream game, except good, Man of Medan really shines through in its co-op, where two players work together and sometimes spend large stretches of the story apart. And of course, if someone dies along the way, you can always blame them.

Awards & Rankings

30
#30 Most Discussed PS4 Game of 2019

User Reviews

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User Score
5.8

Mixed or average reviews- based on 516 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 139 out of 516
  2. Mixed: 233 out of 516
  3. Negative: 144 out of 516
  1. stv363
    Sep 8, 2019
    4
    I was so disappointed by this game. I was a huge fan of Until Dawn, so when I heard this was from the creators I couldn't wait.

    This is    I was so disappointed by this game. I was a huge fan of Until Dawn, so when I heard this was from the creators I couldn't wait.

    This is everything until dawn wasn't. The dialogue was unnatural, the characters weren't interesting and the pacing of the story was terrible. It took the majority of the game walking incredibly slowly round boring scenes, to uncover little to no storyline (with a total lackluster 'twist' at the end) and all of the meaningful action taking place in the last 20-30 minutes.

    There are almost constant glitches, from the laggy cuts during dialogue, difficulty navigating characters, not to mention the infuriating gameplay. The terrible controls cost me every character I lost, from the annoying heartbeat sensor that's totally out of time with the graphics, to the unclear distinction between a spam button QTE and a button click. Given Until Dawn's gameplay was perfect and gave you a real sense you were frantically trying to save the characters life, this is just infuriatingly poor, with hours of gameplay wasted.

    Honestly, I've never been so let down by a game. Won't be buying the next instalment of what I had totally expected to be a fantastic series.    … Full Review »
  2. Reed618
    Aug 31, 2019
    5
    The characters are all pretty annoying and every event just feels way too random. I lost one character because I thought I only needed toThe characters are all pretty annoying and every event just feels way too random. I lost one character because I thought I only needed to press the square button.. turned out I need to press it rapidly.
    Lost two others because I made the wrong dialogue choice... it just didn't feel like I had any control over what was happening which is the point to some extent... but this just felt poorly designed.
    The game is also not scary. A large portion of it is set outside of the ghost ship and the reason for the appearance of monsters and ghouls is explained so clearly that it kind of just ruins it.
    There are no massive shocking revelations to be found that chill you... just jump scares and not even that many of them. It's probably better with friends for a laugh but avoid it if you want a scary single player experience.    … Full Review »
  3. Sl3v1n
    Aug 30, 2019
    10
    Great horror game! It’s like a choose your own adventure book on acid. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes horror/suspense.
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