The medium is set in post-communism Poland in 1999. Marianne, a spiritual medium who helps troubled souls seek a final break, has a recurring dream of a man shooting a young girl by a lake. While grieving the death of her adoptive father, Marianne receives a mysterious phone call from a man named Thomas, who knows of her abilities. Thomas offers to explain the origin of Marianne’s powers, as well as the meaning of the dream. However, he is only willing to talk if Marianne agrees to meet him at the NIWA workers’ resort, an abandoned Communist-era vacation resort in the Polish wilderness. The resort had been closed by the government years before, following an event called the Niwa massacre, in which a large number of people were murdered and survivors fled the area.
While exploring Niwa, Marianne finds the place has strong ties to the spiritual realm, and evidence that Thomas, the resort manager, and his daughter Lilianne were at the epicenter of the Niwa massacre. In the spiritual world, she encounters sadness, the spirit of a young girl who warns her about the Maw, a hostile and malevolent spirit that has also managed to partially exist in the real world. The MAW was responsible for the NIWA massacre, occupying human hosts and using their bodies to kill others, and begins hunting Marianne to satisfy its hunger and escape from Niwa. Marianne repeatedly offers to send sorrow into her peace, but she refuses. Through her visions, Marianne discovers that Sadness is the spirit of Lilianne, who was molested by Thomas’s oldest and most trusted friend, Richard.
Marianne uncovers enough clues to know that Thomas was also a means and because of this, it was experimented on by the Nazis and Soviets, who discovered that its powers could be used to tear people’s minds from their bodies. Eventually, Thomas fled back to Poland, hiding in Niwa and starting a family, but a Służba bezpieczeństwa agent named Henry discovered him. Henry subdued Thomas and forced him to watch as he set Thomas’ house on fire with his children inside, causing Thomas to attack and kill him. Marianne realizes that she is Thomas’ youngest daughter, having fallen into a coma after the fire, and that Thomas left her in the hospital while he remained with Lilianne in Niwa.
Key features
Some positive points of The Medium Torrent
- Unique and immersive atmosphere
- Immersive and complementary soundtrack
- Complex and captivating story
- Intuitive and challenging gameplay
- Excellent performance from the voice actors
