The repercussions of your ever-changing ‘character traits’ are a little more opaque I couldn’t tell if suddenly becoming ‘decisive’ or ‘cowardly’ meant anything on a storytelling level.For the most part, though, consequences in Man of Medan did feel directly tied to my actions, whether they be minor – such as finding a knife to ward off a monster or running from it with no knife – or a major decision like attempting to escape on a speed boat and maybe getting shot in the head. The former seemed to have straightforward repercussions: if you are kind to a character you will see that reflected in their actions - they’ll save you in a bind, for example - and they won’t if they absolutely hate you. These come from building or shattering relationships with dialogue choices, exploration to reveal crucial story-changing items, and making your own decisions on the fly which will change your character traits. Of course, the real raw meat of Man of Medan comes with shaping these characters’ fates through the decisions you make. I only saw five deaths in two playthroughs - I was ok at keeping my characters alive - but each one was short, sharp and shocking you can tell the developers had fun cooking these outlandish scenarios up. There doesn’t seem to be a particular uniting theme with these nasties (unlike say, the wendigos in Until Dawn) other than that they scream a lot, but they’re effectively unnerving. The bulk of Man of Medan takes place on an abandoned World War 2 Freighter where a plethora of spooks – and a handful of aggressive humans – await to send the cast to Hell with a bullet, a knife, or a jaw full of jagged teeth. But that’s never really mattered in a game where half the fun is watching all of them get murdered, because even characters who are dull on the outside are full of blood and guts on the inside!And die they will, repeatedly. Supermassive has moved away from Until Dawn’s campy cast of horror stereotypes to a gang that’s more firmly based in reality, and with a couple of exceptions - Shawn Ashmore’s fun-loving Conrad and Chris Sandiford’s jittery Brad - they’re mostly unremarkable. Man of Medan’s po-faced sincerity translates to a weaker cast of characters.
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