Games Like Man of Medan

I played Man of Medan on a Tuesday night during a storm. The kind of storm where the windows shake a little and you check the weather app twice. I had the volume too high and I was alone in the living room with a coffee that had gone cold and the ocean ambience in the game was doing something to my head — every time the wind picked up outside it sounded like the wind picked up in the game too, and after a while I stopped being able to tell which one I was hearing.

That’s the thing nobody warns you about Supermassive’s first Dark Pictures entry. The game isn’t trying to scare you with jump cuts. It’s trying to convince you that you’re already on the ship.

If you finished Man of Medan and you’re hunting for the next one — something that hits that same atmospheric dread, lets you make choices that actually land, and has the decency to let your characters die when you mess up — here’s where I’d go.

Until Dawn

The original. The game where Supermassive figured out the formula. Eight teenagers at a cabin on a mountain, an honest-to-god butterfly effect system that makes a choice in chapter two reach forward five hours and bite you. If you came to Supermassive through the anthology, Until Dawn will feel slower and more confident. The cinematic camera holds you in fixed angles that some players find dated — I think those angles are doing real work. You don’t get to control where you look. The director is telling a story, and you’re inside it.

Play it on a console if you can. The DualSense haptics in the PC port are decent, but the original PS4 build still feels like the definitive way to meet Mike and Sam and the rest of them. And go in cold. Don’t read about the twist.

Little Hope

The second Dark Pictures entry, and the one I think is structurally the most interesting. A bus crashes in the New England fog. The cast walks into a town that shouldn’t be there. The whole game is about the relationship between trauma and storytelling, and the ending lands harder than people give it credit for. The middle act drags — I’ll be honest — and the QTEs feel a little lighter than Man of Medan’s. But the closing twenty minutes are some of the best Supermassive has put out.

If you came out of Man of Medan thinking I want the same vibe but on land, Little Hope is your answer.

The Quarry

Until Dawn’s bigger, brighter, more expensive cousin. Summer camp instead of a mountain cabin, a cast that’s a little more attractive, a little more polished, but the same DNA. Supermassive swinging for a wider audience without losing the core mechanic — eight protagonists, a single night, choices that close branches you’ll never see. There’s a sequence in the basement of the lodge in the third act that I won’t spoil except to say I had to put the controller down.

The Quarry is the game I’d hand to a friend who doesn’t usually play horror. Man of Medan is what I’d hand to a friend who already does.

House of Ashes

The Dark Pictures entry that gets closest to action-horror — Iraq War setting, soldiers underground, an ancient temple, things in the dark that shouldn’t be. Some Man of Medan fans bounce off it because the supernatural reveal is less ambiguous than the ship’s slow build. I’ll say this: the cave geography in this game is some of the best level design Supermassive has done. You feel lost. You feel like the dark is bigger than your flashlight. That’s the right feeling.

If you liked the claustrophobia of Man of Medan’s lower decks, House of Ashes leans into that and doesn’t let up.

The Devil in Me

The closing chapter of Dark Pictures Season One. A documentary crew gets invited to a hotel modeled on H. H. Holmes’s murder castle, and things go where you expect them to go. Pacing issues — the game’s biggest weakness — kept this one from getting the reception the first three did. But if you finished Man of Medan and want more of that specific anthology rhythm, this is the next stop. Don’t skip the inventory mechanics. They’re new for this entry and they change the texture of the moment-to-moment play.

The Casting of Frank Stone

Newest from Supermassive, set in the Dead by Daylight universe but standalone — you don’t need to know the lore. Tighter than the anthology entries, about six hours, with the QTE-and-choice structure refined. The time-jump structure is what I loved. The story moves between 1980 and present day, and choices in one timeline ripple into the other. The most narratively ambitious thing Supermassive has made.

If you bounced off The Devil in Me’s pacing, Frank Stone is the corrective.

As Dusk Falls

Different style — INTERIOR/NIGHT’s painted-frame visual approach won’t be for everyone — but mechanically, this is the closest thing to Man of Medan that isn’t Supermassive. Two families, decades apart, choices that span generations. Up to eight players can play together on couch or remote. The closest anyone has come to capturing what makes Supermassive games great as a social experience.

You watch your friend make a decision. You boo. The decision turns out to matter. That’s the whole genre, distilled.

Detroit: Become Human

Almost didn’t include this one because it’s sci-fi, not horror. But the mechanics are pure anthology DNA — three protagonists, branching paths, characters who can permanently die and the game accommodates. The flowchart system at the end of every chapter is the best transparent design I’ve seen in the genre. If Man of Medan trained you to wonder what you missed, Detroit hands you the answer.

What I’m trying to build

I write about this genre because I’m trying to extend it. I’m a solo developer working on a cinematic horror game called The Bone Game, the first title under the TSWT Presents banner. Six teenagers, a Friday night, a story told from a treehouse. The bones of Until Dawn’s structure with a frame that’s a little more Tales from the Crypt and a lot more dread.

If anything I wrote up there resonated, you can put The Bone Game on your wishlist. Or just keep reading the blog — I write about this stuff because I love it, not because I have something to sell every time. The next one in this series is Games Like The Dark Pictures Anthology if you want to keep going.

Whatever you play next, play it the right way. Late at night, alone, with the volume too high. With a storm outside if you can get one.