Introduction
"Until Dawn" is a third-person horror game, developed by Supermassive Games and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. Initially teased back in 2012 as a PlayStation Move-game for the PS3, the game ended up in development limbo. In 2014 the game was reintroduced at Gamescom as a PS4 exclusive. The player controls 8 characters throughout the game to unravel the events of a horrible prank gone-wrong that happened at Blackwood Pines a year ago.
The Horror Starts
A year ago, the 8 teens played a horrible prank on Hannah, one of the two twin sisters of Josh, that resulted in both Hannah and Beth escaping the lodge and into the forrest to never be seen from again. "Present day", Josh has invited all 8 teens back to the lodge to "party like porn-stars" and get some closure on the event that happened a year ago.
The player is introduced to each of the 8 characters as they arrive at the lodge, each accompanied with a brief "situation" report ("Mike's Ex-girlfriend"), and three positive traits ("Intelligent, Driven, Persuasive(?)"). The gameplay is very simple. It mainly consists of walking and exploring, QTE-events, and descision-making events. The camera is always static, creating more of a cinematic feeling. There is no HUD. By utilizing the right-stick, the player can manouver the head of the player, searching/scanning the environment for clues. The clues will blink if you "spot" them, and prompt an X to examine the clue. The clues found will be reflected within the game by the characters and also help unravel the events of the past.
Every teen comes with a set of stats that is presented upon pressing the R1-button. Here you can check your characters current stats (bravery, honesty, funniness, etc.) and also their relationship to other characters. This is a pretty cool feature, but I haven't noticed any difference in gameplay by altering the personality stats. It would be very cool if a character had his bravery stat drained -this would unable him to make brave descisions and instead force him onto a different path. As Matt, I had my bravery stat at close to zero, but it still enabled him to do a rather brave action later in the game.
The game is divided into 10 chapters and will take between 10-13 hours to complete. Some source teased that this game has around 1.000 endings. Though this -might- be right, all those endings would be very much the same as it probably will alter in a few spoken lines (ending one: everybody alive, ending two: boys only alive, ending three: girls only alive etc.). I still wouldn't call these added bit of spoken lines a different ending...
Between the chapters we are interrupted by Dr. Hill - a guy that ask you different questions, let's you make some descisions about the characters, and is very interrested in your fear. I don't know if this is a spoiler or not, but I wish his interaction sessions had more of an outcome in the game. The role of this guy becomes more apparent throughout the ending of the game.
Gameplay Elements
The gameplay is fairly simple. You walk around examining the area with your character, searching for clues, totems and other interesting tidbits. You can walk faster by pressing L1. The game is interrupted now and then by Quick-Time Events. The outcome of these range from nothing to life-changing. There is also the descision events, where you usually interact with the other characters. The things you say, or the actions you do, will all have a "Butterfly effect". Whenever a Butterfly effect has happened, you will immediately be notified by a small text in the upper-left corner. You can choose to turn on "Global Choices". What this mean is that you can see what the majority of other players have chosen to choose in this scenario. Some of these options only affect the relationships between the characters, and may not alter the story one bit. E.g Ashley and Chris, two teens whom are madly "in" to each other but neither person knows this about the other, end up searching the lodge for Sam whom has disappeared. At the end of this part, Ashley stops to confront Chris that she doesn't want to go further. No matter what you choose to say to Chris results in you going back; you can either choose to say that you are too scared or prompt you two to "soldier" on, but the choice sees to have little affect on the next thing that happens - you continue your search for Sam. This part irked me a bit as the player controls Ashley, whom is madly in love with Chris. Chris is also in love with Ashley, but at this time he seems too hellbent on finding Sam... I almost believed he had a major crush on Sam instead of Ash. During this chapter/part Ash turns to Chris numerous times for reassurance and comfort, but Chris is obsessed with Sam. It could be a fun drinking game: drinking everytime Chris mentions Sam.
I also feel this game is stripped of physical comfort. To pursue the love between Chris and Ash, I often longed for one of them to hug the other character, or a prompt to kiss the other. The same goes for Mike and Jess, whom seems to be the "sexy" couple in the bunch. There are too few options that result in physical comfort. When Ash becomes "hysterical", I just wanted to hug her.
A cool gameplay element is the totems. These are items scattered around the "maps" that you find. Check them out, and they will reveal a possible future for you, be it the death of a character ot the guidance of a "correct" choice. These aare brilliant and helps you make tough decisions.
Many games feature the so-called "illusion of choice" e.g a choice that isn't really a choice. This game has some of those, although a surprisingly amount of options alters the game somehow -not very much. At one point, your character is chasing something and your are confronted with numerous QTE-prompts. As a test, I chose to see if anything changed if I chose to lose all the QTEs. I was impressed with the results. Too often in videogames I've been informed that my character "needs to hurry before something terrible happens", but never has any urgency of actions resulted in a different outcome. Even though this game has a great dea of "butterfly effect", I wish it had more "obscure/absurd" choices at times, and not a choice between two things that don't interest me.
The game features rather long parts of walking and "exploring" often hard-to-find places due to the placements of the "cameras". This can make the game a bit boring, actually, after you've already beaten the game of course. The replay-value is there, but after collecting all the items, and getting all the trophies, the value might be gone. I do not wish to witness all 1.000 of the endigs, especially not if they're just added lines of dialogue.
Graphics/Sound
The graphics of this game is truly amazing. Characters look really good, and so does the environments. There are only a couple of times that Jessica became the victim of "uncanny valley", and certain grimaces show too much teeth, but this happens so seldom that I applaud the tech used to make this game. A down-side to the amazing characters, is that they become too "stiff". Allow me to explain: sometimes when characters become too good looking, they often sacrifice interaction with others/certain animation(s). E.g the game called "Singles" was a game with pretty awesome-looking characters, but when the characters started to interact, it looked very, very disturbing and unnatural. I don't know if this is the reason that the characters in "Until Dawn" doesn't hug, kiss, caress or touch each other very often. I do like the touch, when Emily is hanging up-side down, where her hair is hanging down. It's a nice little detail. Cudos.
Torches and small flames also look very good. I actually had a discussion a few days ago with a friend regarding how fire/flames never look good in video games. He was complaining about the fire in Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom pain, and I mentioned that I thought the flames in Until Dawn looks very good.
The game sports amazing graphics, no doubt about it- great lighting, highly detailed items (sawed-off shotgun, revolver, etc.), highly detailed characters and great environments. But all these thing takes their toll on the system. The PS4 constantly struggles with keeping the frame-rate steady. At times, the frame-rate drops to a horrible 18 Frames per second. This rarely becomes in the way of gameplay, and usually occurs in cinematics, albeit it is highly noticeable and annoying at times. A video on the matter shows the game mainly keeps a steady 25 Fps throughout the game.
The game also features the very popular dynamic focus-effect. This adds to the games cinematic experience, but sometimes, the game gets confused and ends up blurring things that shouldn't be blurred. Very noticeable in the opening cinematic, and also when traversing a cave as Emily.
Sound engineering is also top notch. Voice acting is very good, and so are the ambient sounds. In the very first cinematic when Hannah runs away, Beth sounds a bit ... off, but the rest of the cast is great. The score help keep the game within the horror genre with haunting strings. They all work well to create a scary environment.
Story/plot
The story is decent, and I have no trouble with it - it is standard horror movie stuff. I do wish, however, that the adjustments done at Dr. Hill's "office" did have more of an impact. It is funny to know parts of the story that the teens don't know, and listen as they unveil clues and get closer to the truth.
The story has its twist and turns, and if you've collected the clues, the impending result might not come as a shock to you (especially along the main arch: there can be said to be three arches/stories at once). I do wish, however, that the main story also had bigger changes to them due to choices made and such.
After you've completed the game, you can revisit all the chapters to make new decisions, but this is currently flawed. If you wish your "new actions" to be the standard and build upon them throughout your new walkthrough, you have to do it in one sitting as the game remains saved off your initial completion.
Some things still baffle me with the story and why certain characters decide to do this and that. E.g. during the second part of the game, Mike suddenly decides to go on a gung-ho mission, and Sam decides to follow him, her reason being, and I quote: "Shit, shit, shit". Some decisions you make have minor impact, while others have greatly and shocking results. I do, however, as stated before, wish some choices or decisions were more absurd. Some site wrote that this game is like a gaming version of very popular horror movie "The Cabin in the Woods"... but it is not. I wish there were more similarities: that movie is great. Until Dawn's story is not a poor one, it is decent. Larry Fessenden has really revelled in the horror tropes and created a scary horror story.
Final Destination
"Until Dawn" is a super-fun game the first 2-3 times you play it. If you wish to play it more to discover "all the endings", you are in for a lot of walking in the snow. Like a horror movie, it is funniest the first time you experience it. I am currently on my third playthrough and I must be honest and say the game feels like a chore sometimes. It is a unique gaming experience, none the less, with actual decision-making differences. The game is very beautiful, looks truly next-gen, and the sound design truly embraces the horror tropes and works together to create a fantastic gaming experience. This game is definitively worth checking out.
I've played through thegame about 3 times, now on my fourth, and feels it will probably be my last.
By finishing m 4th playthough I will have achieved all the trophies available.
Each playthrough takes approx. 11-13 hours, give or take how interested you are in searching for clues.
All pictures found on google searching for "Until Dawn".