Layers Of Fear Developer Thinks This Console Gen Is "Most Crucial"

The next game to be released by Poland's Bloober Team, the studio behind Observer and Layers of Fear, is The Medium, a game that stands out for its curious cross-dimensional gameplay. With players able to simultaneously explore two unique worlds at once, Bloober developers have said that the improvements made in the new generation of consoles have been vital in bringing the horror game to life.

Bloober developers have previously spoken about how The Medium was planned for earlier generations, starting with the Xbox 360. That version of the game even went so far as getting an official website and an ominous teaser sent to members of the gaming press.

Now, in an interview for Game Informer's Issue #332, lead game designer Wojciech Piejko and producer Jacek Zięba have explained why the newest generation of consoles were perfect for bringing The Medium's ambitious vision to life.

"The idea of two experiences happening at once is hard to implement," Zięba said. "With the Xbox 360 it became easier to play with 3D environments and different camera angles… but it's only with this generation that the vision of two worlds at once was actually doable."

"We have two worlds, two games rendered at the same time, and previous generations just weren't that powerful," Piejko explained. "New technology was like a new language, it gave us more freedom with the story itself."

The developers also explained how the new generation consoles create opportunities for developers beyond just improving graphical quality. "This generation of gaming is the most crucial," Piejko said. "It's so much more than just better graphics, how the entire system works is different… Everything is changing from era to era, but right now? The level of detail, the freedom of physics is much higher."

Even ray tracing, which is traditionally associated with making games graphically gorgeous, can add so much more than a pretty scene--especially for a horror game, where the interplay of light and darkness is key to the player's experience. "Ray tracing is used for different purposes, like better attenuation of music, or depth perception in relation to the in-game world," Piejko explains.

The Medium is due out on Xbox Series X/S and PC on January 28, 2021. It'll be one of the first games to skip the Xbox One entirely, rather than try and fit the game to the limitations of the older console.