I like my decisions to have consequences, and The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan delivers on that front with some strong choices and potential outcomes. Unlike developer Supermassive Games’ biggest horror hit to date, the campy Until Dawn, Man of Medan takes a more serious and brooding approach to horror. It starts off slow, but maintains a welcome sense of dread in its latter half. The meaningful choice-and-consequence system makes a second or even third playthrough enticing—especially when playing online co-op, where you can potentially screw each other over.

There’s a lot of horror-flavored enjoyment to be found in Man of Medan, even though the story takes itself quite seriously. While Until Dawn was a pastiche of 80s slasher films and creature features, Man of Medan aims for a more mature, psychological horror vibe. The game centers around a group of young divers who end up stranded on a mysterious World War II freighter, and it does a great job of building tension with its grim atmosphere and regular shocks.

However, it lacks the personality of its predecessor. In a game with such a fun premise, I could have used a bit more humor. Unfortunately, Man of Medan starts at a glacial pace. The first couple of hours of a five-hour playthrough are spent slowly familiarizing us with the characters’ relationships and the controls. Fortunately, the claustrophobic tension in the latter half of the game makes up for the slow start, though it did leave me wondering why Supermassive didn’t dive into the horror elements sooner.

The story’s serious tone also translates to a weaker cast of characters. Supermassive has moved away from the campy horror stereotypes in Until Dawn, opting for a cast that’s more grounded in reality. While some characters stand out—like Sean Ashmore’s fun-loving Conrad and Chris Sandiford’s jittery Brad—most of the cast are fairly unremarkable. But in a genre where half the fun is watching characters get killed off, being attached to them isn’t always necessary. Even the dullest characters are full of blood and guts and die… repeatedly.

There doesn’t seem to be a consistent theme for Man of Medan‘s collection of threats, other than that they scream a lot. But they’re still effectively unnerving. The gore is also impressive, with some visceral moments that will definitely get under your skin.

Unfortunately, the ship itself doesn’t carry the same level of creativity. The layout is made up of uninspired, repetitive corridors. The fixed camera angles make guiding characters through doorways a bit awkward, and I found myself getting lost frequently, as all the hallways looked the same.

The real meat of Man of Medan lies in shaping the fates of the characters through your decisions. You can build or shatter relationships with dialogue choices, explore to find crucial story-changing items, and make on-the-fly decisions that can alter the traits of the characters. Some of these decisions have direct consequences, while others, particularly those tied to character traits, can feel a bit more ambiguous. For example, I couldn’t tell if becoming more decisive or cowardly really had any storytelling impact. But for the most part, the consequences in Man of Medan feel tied to my actions, whether they were minor choices or major ones.

Much of the fun in this type of game comes from replaying it and pushing its systems to see how different choices play out. If you plan to replay, I highly recommend playing online with a friend. The story is a lot of fun when you’re each controlling one character in the group, experiencing it from different perspectives. There are also co-op-exclusive sequences I didn’t encounter in the single-player mode. The real question is: will you play nice and try to save everyone, or will one of you make the worst decisions possible? I had the most fun playing this way, delighting in my co-op partner’s unexpected choices.

Man of Medan lacks the campy charm of Until Dawn, and as a result, its relatively dull cast and repetitive corridors don’t create the same fun atmosphere. But it still offers a tense and unnerving horror experience with consequences that feel directly tied to your choices. If you can push through its slow start, playing through it with a co-op partner is a blast, especially as you both explore its many branching storylines.