

At one point I was controlling a diver, navigating through the wreckage of an old plane. Other times we’re doing different things, and operate somewhat independently. Sometimes our stories intersect, and we move through the environment together. The way this works is that we are both active in the game at the same time, controlling different characters.

Here’s how I approached the game: First of all, my buddy and I played the shared story mode. Shared story mode pushes this a little further, and the end result was like a multilayered movie night that had all of my friends howling in terror and laughter. The decisions you make for them will help them survive. The game gives you control over its characters, allowing you to choose where they go, what they do, and what they say. In the Polygon review of Man of Medan, Austen Goslin wrote: “ Man of Medan sits somewhere on the line between a Choose Your Own Adventure book and a horror movie. The games will be connected by the framing device of the Curator, a sinister but somewhat helpful man who pulls these tales from a shelf and shares them with the players. The Dark Pictures Anthology is a series of stand-alone games from Supermassive Games, the developers who made the 2014 cult hit Until Dawn. The experience was a perfect palate cleanser from my usual games-as-a-service titles - it was concise, clever, and creepy, and the game is still lingering in the back of my mind.

That being said, those four hours were the most incredible co-op experience of the year for me. That’s not a ton of time, especially considering I picked up a copy for both me and my friend. The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan only lasted about four hours during my first playthrough.
