The Medium is a new psychological horror game from Bloober Team out on PC and Xbox Series X | S and available on Xbox Game Pass. While the game leans heavily on its creepy atmosphere and emotional storytelling, there are a handful of tricky puzzles throughout the game that may impede your progress. One occurs roughly two-thirds of the way through the 8-hour campaign of The Medium, and it involves a locked door in need of a four-digit passcode in the basement of the building known as the Red House.
Once you’ve finally helped guide Marianne out of the main Niwa resort building and experienced a pair of flashbacks where you play as Thomas as he explores the spirit realms of two specific individuals, you’ll find yourself finally at remnants of the Red House.
The charred remains of the building contain a mirror that can be moved, allowing you to poke around the spirit version of the home and solve a handful of puzzles. Once completed, the path to the basement underneath the Red House opens up.
The Medium’s Red House basement contains three main areas. The room where you enter is filled with various odds and ends, including a lone shoe, a teddy bear, and a syringe that can be examined to get a bit of backstory about the fire that consumed the house and how it relates to Marianne.
To the left is a small room filled with shelving units, a locker, and a desk. The locker can be entered using the bolt cutters. Inside is an empty box that once held a pocket watch. The watch was a gift to Thomas from his wife on their 10-year anniversary. On the desk next to the locker is a gift receipt, which shows that the watch was purchased on April 14, 1976. Given the anniversary, we can deduce that the couple was married in 1966. That four-digit year is important, so remember it.
The final area of the basement can be accessed by shimmying through a gap in the right-hand wall in the main room. It’s here that you’ll find a solid-steel military door with a keypad to its left side. The solution to the door lock — and to proceeding out of the Red House basement in The Medium — is a four-digit passcode.
If you visit this door as soon as you enter the basement, you’ll have no idea what the answer might be. But given what we found regarding Thomas’ anniversary gift, we can deduce that the code is the year that they were married — 1966.
With the Red House basement door successfully open, The Maw once again appears and chases you into the pump station, one of the final areas of the game.
For more on The Medium, check out our full review of the game.
