Until Dawn

Until Dawn is a third-person horror game that follows a group of friends who travel to the snowy Blackwood Mountain lodge for an uneasy vacation after a terrible tragedy the previous year. With all seven friends joined together, they explore their cold surroundings, but something dangerous hides in the shadows. To survive the night and make it off the mountain alive, you'll make important decisions, recover clues, and switch between characters during this chaotic and terrifying adventure. Acting like an interactive movie with multiple branching paths, Until Dawn is a frightening journey that's great for players of all skill levels who love the horror genre.

Main Game Features

• Uncover a gripping horror mystery
• Major decisions change the outcome of the story
• Third-person exploration and quick-time events

Story

The story in Until Dawn starts off with a group of friends partying on Blackwood Mountain, when a mean prank turns south, resulting in the death of two party-goers. One year later, the survivors return to the mountain for another party, this time with tensions high and suspicions abound. As the friends split up, they are ambushed by an unknown assailant, who begins picking them off one by one. With the weather growing worse and the situation becoming dire, the friends must band together and uncover the identity of the masked killer or die in the process.

Similar to games like Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human, Until Dawn has a sprawling narrative that can veer off in numerous directions, all based on your actions during important moments. During your time on the mountain, you'll control several of the main group, making decisions and overcoming obstacles. Depending on your approach to these problems, characters may die, clues may be missed, and the ending will be changed. Thanks to this, the story in Until Dawn is not only creepy, bloody, and unsettling, but is also worth experiencing multiple times in order to get the full narrative.

Gameplay

Generally speaking, Until Dawn emphasizes its storytelling over the gameplay, providing players with a cinematic night of terror. As such, the gameplay takes a passive role, with most action scenes requiring players to complete quick time events rather than traditional third-person combat. For instance, when you are attacked by the main villain or encounter a dangerous booby trap, you'll have to press a button within a limited window or suffer the consequences.

Other gameplay elements include limited exploration, where you'll walk around environments looking for objects of interest or clues. You'll also spend a good amount of time chatting with your fellow survivors, forming alliances or betraying each other. While the gameplay is slow-paced at times, it adds a lot of suspense to the overall experience, fitting well within the style of the story. If you're looking for a hectic shooting game, you'll probably be disappointed, as Until Dawn is a slow-burn interactive adventure with a handful of moments of action.

Conclusion

If you appreciate story-based adventures that contain more character development than shoot-outs, Until Dawn will definitely satisfy your horror needs. The main cast includes some interesting and nuanced characters, while the overall plot is full of twists and surprises that will leave your jaw on the floor.

Pros

• Effective scares and a creepy atmosphere
• Branching story paths
• Worth playing multiple times

Cons

• Some underwhelming characters
• Gameplay can feel passive
• Unnecessary motion controls

I love Until Dawn and I am actually a pretty big fan of a great deal of the stuff that this studio has put out over the years. You know, I think that I would rank this movie as the number one, maybe number two out of all the horror games that these guys have made. I will say that the unnecessary remake/remaster that this has gotten seems kind of pointless, but I still want to talk about this awesome horror experience anyway as it is as close as you can get to being in a horror movie!

A Prank Gone Wrong

The setting of Until Dawn is a big ass mansion in the mountains. There is a big party with these college aged kids where Hannah, one of the twins whose lodge this is, is the victim of a prank. Hannah runs out into the snow, her twin sister follows her and the pair are never seen again. Now, this is how you set up a freaking horror game. It has some frantic suspense right from the start and you are thinking “what the hell” the whole time it is all going down. If you love horror, you will honestly get a massive kick out of this.

A Year Later… Welcome To Hell

Despite that exciting intro, Until Dawn jumps a year into the future. Josh, who is the brother of the missing twins, invites the people who were there last year to a party at the same lodge. This is where the real story begins as the characters are stalked by a strange masked killer. That alone is awesome, but this game offers so much more than that as we have a supernatural twist and we also have some psychological horror as well. We get to know these characters very well as we play as them all and the story jumps from character to character and there are so many ways that this story can go!

The Who, The What And The Why!

Until Dawn is played from the third person and the game will give you control of different characters as the story progresses. The “gimmick” of the game is that the story can go in many different ways as all the characters can die and all of the characters can survive and it all depends on what your actions are as to who will live or who will die. You can find hints as you progress through the game. However, it throws some brutal choices your way and it is so hard to get your head straight and really think before you act. The amount of times I would make a choice and then regret it is insane, but I was pushed to make choices quickly and panicked. I will say that some of the exploration is a little on the jank side, but the remaster or remake is fixing that.

That Movie Like Experience

The term “cinematic experience” is thrown around a lot, but there is honestly no other way to describe what Until Dawn is like when it comes to the presentation. The game has a stacked cast and while most people will talk about Rami Malek and Hayden Panettiere being in the game, for me it was Cheyenne from Superstore, Nichole Sukura that I got the biggest kick out of. Even on the PlayStation 4, this game looked fantastic! The lodge is creepy as hell and the place you go after the lodge is even creepier! The characters all have a very real look to them and the voice acting is just amazing in every regard! This along with Supermassive Games, The Quarry are as close to being in a horror movie as you can get in a video game.

Pros:

• The actors make this all feel real!
• This game does not screw around with the choices it gives you
• It looks and feels very cinematic
• If you love horror, you will love this!

Cons:

• Some of the character movement can be a tad clunky
• Some people may get freaked out while playing this!