It was released for Windows and Xbox Series X/S on January 28, 2021, for PlayStation 5 on September 3, 2021, for Amazon Luna on February 17, 2022, and for macOS on August 31, 2023.

[7][8] Marianne, a spirit medium that helps troubled souls seek final respite, has a recurring dream of a man shooting a young girl by a lake.

While grieving over the death of her foster father, Marianne receives a mysterious phone call from a man named Thomas, who knows of her abilities.

The Resort had been shuttered by the government years earlier after an event called the Niwa Massacre, in which a large number of people were murdered and the survivors fled the area.

Marianne pieces together enough clues to learn that Thomas was also a medium, and due to this was experimented on by Nazis and Soviets, who found out that his powers could be used to sever people's minds from their bodies.

Eventually Thomas fled back to Poland, hiding at Niwa and starting a family, but an agent of Służba Bezpieczeństwa named Henry discovered him.

Marianne discovers a fallout bunker hidden beneath the ruins of her family home where she encounters Thomas' spirit half.

She then hands Marianne a gun and pleads with her to kill her, as the Maw cannot be banished as long as she is alive; explaining why Sadness, her spirit, refused to be sent off to peace.

Marianne hesitates, and, considering Thomas' words, threatens to kill herself instead, as without her as a medium, the Maw will remain trapped in Niwa forever.

The Medium was developed by Bloober Team,[4] with lead designer Wojciech Piejko and producer Jacek Zieba coming up with the idea in 2012.

[5] They had originally planned for release on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii U in 2012, but rendering two point-of-views at the same time was a technical challenge for these platforms, and Bloober Team shelved the idea.

This partially was used to mask unrendered details in some settings, but was also used to keep a sense of unease as when Marianne has a conversation with characters in the spirit world, while her real self is shown interacting with nothing.

[9] Audio for the game was made by a "Silent Hill dream team" according to Bloober Team,[11] including Silent Hill series composer Akira Yamaoka, singer Mary Elizabeth McGlynn,[12] and voice actor Troy Baker;[13][14] Yamaoka was persuaded to take on the music when Piejko gave him a gameplay demonstration.

[22][24][23] IGN awarded the game an 8/10, stating "Brilliantly paced and palpably tense, The Medium is a psychological horror adventure that's all thriller and no filler.