Supermassive's Until Dawn carries a series of horror tropes from slasher to grind house horror movies where you see stuff that's similar to Evil Dead, Poltergeist and Psycho with also teens in a get together that will do anything to flirt with around with each other till they end up scaring each other to death. It's the kind of thing you would expect in a horror setting but that doesn't stop it from being a tensely frightening experience that puts you in control of the game's narrative.
In this Interactive Horror Until Dawn's story takes place on the snowy mountain of Blackwood where the player takes control of 8 students who return to a holiday cabin a year after two of their friends disappeared in hopes of trying to reconnect and move onwards. In the beginning chapters you are introduced to each of the characters as the game shifts dynamically back and forth between them as you get to see them interacting with each other after not seeing each other in a year. Each of the characters are based off various actors who provided their likeness and voice acting for the game and while lines often get cheesy plus some of the horror homages and tropes are cliche the backstories that lead to the events help bring the storyline together. You do get to see the friends pulling pranks on each other but eventually afterwards they then realize they are being watched by horrors that haunt the mountains and they have to survive.
This game is centered around making choices and having to live with the consequences, you are first given the chance to explore the dark locations that have multiple paths that you can take, doing some simple environmental puzzles and eventually moving onwards to the next area with no way of going back. You'll also end up exploring around optionally finding clues such as documents, scattered around revealing some more backstory into the events with the characters and the dangerous events that happened before. You'll also come across small statues called Totems that reveal possible outcomes that can possibly happen which will make you think hard about your decisions.
Throughout the game you are presented with a choice where you pick from either the left or right available choices in situations like defusing an argument with two friends or choosing to or not snoop on a phone to more life-or-death situations. Making some of the small choices improves or worsens relationships between the characters as well as some of the stats and seeing how each of the choices affect the characters stats and relationships are integrating. This is where the Butterfly Effect comes into play where you are making these small choices that affect the narrative and making these small choices can alter the character's fates later on.
The game is presented in an episode format where the game recaps what happened in previous chapters allowing for anyone who wants to play the game in short bursts. In between the game's 10 chapters you are meet with a psychologist Dr Hill who addresses you the player and analyses the fears based on your choices. While the feelings of getting your fears tested is unnerving like how you pick from what makes you scared most to what you value from the characters but these moments don't have any actual impact on the story but it does add to the creepiness factor of the game.
The presentation in the game is outstanding, the detail of the environments from snow hills, mineshafts and an abandoned sanatorium feel like you are exploring a real place with darkness looming all around. The restrictive camera angles give an excellent horror feel and suspense as it makes you feel that someone's watching you and also, I think it's well done for this kind of game. The characters look very life like even down to the facial animations which are very incredible which bring. It's a brilliant looking and atmospheric game and even it does stutter a little bit it the game has some outstanding graphics that come as close looking as close as realistic or looking rather film quality which is impressive for a PS4 game. The music by Jason Graves adds a sense of chilling and haunting and makes you aware that danger lurks and is coming for you around the next corner possible.
Later on, a character will have to deal with a dangerous encounter and moments that could possibly lead to a character surviving or one of them ending up dying. You are presented with quick time events where you have to press the correct button quickly to an on-screen prompt in between choosing between a safe path or the quickest path. Some of these quick time events can go too fast to the point that your brain won't be able to register quickly enough to be able to react to them. I've never been a fan of quick time events in video games not even in Resident Evil 4 and these QTEs are just too quick to be able respond especially with some of them that just appear out of where without you having any chance to react. It does encourage you to always pay attention when something is happening on screen, some situations are done by reacting to QTEs and pick from one of two choices but also the game has some moments where it is best to do nothing which is decent way of allowing to think rather than just react to everything. There are also some encounters where the game tells not to move at all by making you hold the Dual Shock 4 controller still as possible which makes good use of the Light Bar Sensor capabilities. These are actually really tense moments where you are desperately trying to keep the controller as still as possible to avoid death but using a Third-Party Controller that has no Light Bar Sensor removes the tension because of the lack of motions. There are some shooting moments where you have to drag the crosshair to the target and these are actually pretty easy to react to plus the controls do work well for those sequences.
Eventually your choices are going to matter because later on each of them has consequences where one choice could possibly result in getting one of your friends killed. Anybody can die in the game because of a small choice that would be fatal and how these are played out falls on you. It is a permadeath system where you get to see before your eyes someone dying you have no choice but to live with it. If a character has died you can't undo your actions and you have to live with it because the game auto saves your actions with no way of reloading so that it makes sure that your choices remain permanent. You get to feel the weight of each of your decisions while you try your hardest to not get anyone killed especially characters that you care strongly about but you just know that somehow you are going to get someone possibly killed even if one of them deserved it. It makes the narrative of everybody can die work well and you will grow to have a relationship with each of the characters and do your best to try and keep as many alive to the end. Even some of the small choices have non-fatal consequences like getting caught or not having a weapon to defend yourself with. If you do end up screwing up and one of them dies there's no going back and you have to live with the consequences and the game is going to remind you of your choices. Eventually after finishing the game, you do unlock the option to replay previous chapters which allow you to explore the choices to see how things could have been done differently allowing for multiple playthroughs. What does make replaying the game enjoyable after you went through it for the first time is seeing all of the possible outcomes that could have happened with things changes up compared to the choices you made the first time plus the does have multiple endings showing off the different outcomes. It makes the QTE moments very meaningful because one mistake of a QTE and you won't get a second chance and you have no choice but to move on and live with it.
The game can be played with either motion controls where you perform tilt controls on the Dual Shock 4 or you can play with traditional controls where you do the actions on the buttons instead. The motion controls do work fine and feel great, you hold down the R2 button to pick up and hold the item and the way you turn the item you're holding over by flipping the controller sideways is pretty cool and acts out like you are holding something. There are some interactive puzzle moments like activating a generator and using a lighter to light up a lantern which task you to follow the on-screen prompts.
Now did I find Until Dawn all that scary? To be honest I actually kind of was. The game does start off as somewhat funny where you are laughing at the ridiculous stunts that the characters throw at you and then it starts to get somewhat scary as the fear of danger lurking around the next corner accompanied by a shriek. The moments where I was terrified the most were at the character death scenes which I won't lie are brutally violent and at times gruesome to watch which forced me to look away from the TV screen or covering my eyes until the moment was over. This was why I feared losing one of these characters because I knew that the next possible death screen was going to possibly be more brutal than the last, again even if maybe one or two characters deserved to die if given the choice. Then there was the final chapter where the beginning part of that had me scared and uncomfortable and I found it the scariest part of the game.
Despite the cliches, ridiculousness from the characters and control issues with the QTEs Until Dawn is a rather tensely horrifying game that has you either trying to keep as many alive or killed as you want. Best of all it's how well executed the whole choice and consequence impact the story in many ways and how everyone lives or dies is all dependent on you and it is worth replaying again and again to get all of the clues and totems and see how things can go differently. It is worth the cheap price tag for a physical copy and digitally or if you were one of those lucky people like me who got it for free on PlayStation Plus Subscription. Out of all of the games from Supermassive and also out of these stories driven narrative type games like Heavy Rain, Life is Strange and also one I did do a review on Erica I say that Until Dawn is probably one of the better and more interesting games that you should check out if you like these types of games. It's just a shame that Supermassive afterwards would release follow ups and a new series that sadly weren't all that good aside from the VR game Until Dawn Rush of Blood but this game is still a very enjoyable narrative driven game for anyone who is a fan of horror and being able to see how the storyline can be played in different ways. Least any of these are better than any of the stuff that David Cage brings out nowadays I mean yikes.
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Game Score: 8.0/10
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Game Title: Until Dawn
Platform: PlayStation 4
Developer: Supermassive Games
Genre: Horror
Age Rating: PEGI: 18+
Release Date: 26th August 2015 (Europe)
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The Good Points:
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1. Numerous massive choices and consequences that greatly affect how the story plays out and how each of the characters live or die
2. Very frightening and tense at times
3. The Death Scenes are very violent and gruesome
4. Outstanding presentation and how everything looks is incredible
5. All choices in the game matter throughout the game
The Bad Points:
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1. Quick Time Events often don't give you a chance to react to button prompts at times
2. Has plenty of cliché horror tropes that you can expect to see coming
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Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
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