Once you solve the photo development puzzle in the secret room attached to Thomas Rekowicz’s office in The Medium, you’ll encounter The Maw for the first time. The Maw is a terrifying creature who wants to wear you as a skinsuit.
During your first encounter with The Maw, you’ll need to survive a harrowing chase sequence where you’ll need to take the correct turns in order to avoid getting caught. Then, you’ll need to survive a tense stealth sequence where you’ll need to carefully creep past The Maw to likewise avoid getting caught.
Both of these parts of The Medium can be tricky, not to mention frustrating. To help save you from some of this frustration, our next walkthrough for The Medium will run through what you need to do to escape The Maw both during the chase, and during the subsequent stealth portion of the encounter.
The Medium | How To Escape The Maw First Chase And Stealth Sequence
The first encounter with The Maw will show it picking Marianne up. Marianne will use her Spirit Blast in the cutscene to break free. When the cutscene ends, the chase sequence begins.
You’ll need to hold RT to run, then quickly navigate the twists and turns correctly to avoid getting caught.
If you run against a wall, run into spirit moths, slow down, or take a wrong turn, you’ll get caught by The Maw who’ll say, “It all ends in me!”
The first time, pretty scary. The third or fourth time, pretty annoying. We get it Maw, it all ends in you.
Anyway, to get past The Maw, you’ll need to take the following turns in order:
Head straight.
Turn right when The Maw says, “Alone! Naked!”
Turn right when you approach a wall straight in front of you and The Maw says, “Let me try you on!”
Turn right quickly again when you approach a wall of spirit moths and Marianne says, “Oh God, no…”
Turn left quickly, Marianne will encounter a wall of spirit moths and stumble slightly.
Turn right when The Maw says, “Don’t worry! You’ll fit just fine!”
Turn left at next wall of spirit moths when The Maw says, “I’ll eat up your insides! So there’s plenty of room!”
The spirit moths will start to attack you, don’t stop, keep running forward straight.
Marianne will see a light in front of her, run towards that light. When you reach it, you’ll be safe.
If you want just the basic set of turns themselves without the added text above, here’s what they are in simplified form:
- Right
- Right
- Right
- Left
- Right
- Left
- Keep going straight towards the light in the doorway as the moths attack you from behind.
In the next area, you’ll find a Spirit Well which you can collect energy from.
Note that you’ll need this spirit energy to get past the first part of The Maw stealth sequence in the next area.
How To Escape The Maw Using Stealth
To escape The Maw in the stealth area immediately following the first chase sequence, you’ll need to press the left thumbstick (LS) and crouch down and slowly move between each of the boxes.
Make your way from the box on your right, to the box on your left, to the next box up ahead and to your right again.
Note that you will get caught during the first portion of this stealth sequence no matter what you do!
Don’t worry, just press RT when prompted to use a Spirit Blast and The Maw will retreat back to the second portion of the stealth area.
From this point forward, you do not want to get caught by The Maw again or you’ll have to start all over again from the beginning.
With that in mind, pay close attention to where The Maw is as you’re creeping forward. Be patient and wait for The Maw to move away as needed.
You’ll only want to move when its back is turned to you while continuing to crouch. Don’t stand up and run just yet!
In the image above, we’ve outlined the path you’re going to need to take to make it past The Maw.
As you creep between the first three sections of boxes, you’ll reach a point where you’ll need to wait for The Maw to head up and around towards the doorway.
After a pause, The Maw will start walking off to the left from the door.
As you can see in the image above (faintly at least), The Maw is circled in red and is heading off to the left away from the door.
This means it’s go time.
We made Marianne start running up to the door when we saw this, and we were able to escape into that next area without being caught.
Because The Maw hates the light of the Spirit Well, you’re safe in this next area. It can’t grab you here.
All you’ll need to do is collect the energy from the Spirit Well and use it to deflect the spirit moths with your Spirit Shield by holding RB as you move forward into the next area.
Be sure to check back as we’ll have another walkthrough up shortly that breaks down this next section of the game!
Related: The Medium Review | A Spiritual Journey
