Until Dawn is a classic tale of a cast of young beautiful characters getting killed off in horrifically gory ways by something lurking in the woods. It’s a modern horror game classic, packed full of twists and red herrings, and if you have not played the game in it’s original incarnation then you are in for a treat. With the PS4 original still very playable on PS5, you might be wondering what this remake brings to the table after less than a decade.
The characters are tropes of the genre with the jock, the nerd, the bitch and – thanks to the Hayden Panettiere’s casting – the cheerleader, all present. You get to play as all of the characters at various points throughout the game and make decisions that radiate out in a Butterfly Effect: What seems a simple decision may have a drastic impact later on, so much so that you might not even get to play large sections of the game if you manage to kill off a character early in the story.
Like all the ‘best’ horror movies the cast can be incredibly stupid and act in completely irrational ways. After screamed conversation about how no-one should go outside due to the murderous things roaming around, a character will then decide they must go, unarmed, into the heart of danger. Two minutes later the rest of cast, who were hysterical just moments ago, trot off happily to follow them. After a good half an hour of terror, a character in the second group chirps “I’ll take it from here the rest of you can go back” and off they trot. It makes no sense whatsoever and while the ‘stupid but beautiful people’ trope is clearly being played on, in 2024 it does just feel like bad writing. I also noticed that Hayden Panttiere’s character takes the longest bath ever. Girl, I know you got to look beautiful, but over two hours soaking in the tub while your friends are being diced in to bits is just not on!
The core gameplay will be very familiar to anyone who has played Supermassive’s original or any of the more recent entries in The Dark Pictures Anthology or The Quarry. Fairly lengthy cutscenes are followed by a period of exploration in which you can find clues to the story, with moments of action or horror liberally sprinkled throughout the 6-8 hour play time. The action scenes take the form of quick time events whilst the horror and stealth sections require you to hold the DualSense controller completely still, mimicking your character’s on screen predicament – if you move, they die. Both of these elements work even better than they did on PS4 thanks to haptic feedback, the controller shaking to your heartbeat as you try and stay still.
It is fair to say that there is a lot of walking around, but we are now way past ‘walking simulators’ being a derogatory term. The genre has established itself fully and Until Dawn remains one of the best with plenty of dialogue which add to the story as you trudge through the snow, the game gradually ramping up the tension.
If you did not know that Supermassive created Until Dawn back in 2015 then you would be forgiven for thinking that Until Dawn is a brand new game. It’s not labelled as a remaster or a remake, it’s just ‘Until Dawn’ with Supermassive only acknowledged at the end of a very, very long credit sequence in which everyone and their dog is mentioned before the people who actually created the original title. With Sony treating this is a brand new title, and it being a full remake in Unreal Engine, there is also means there’s no upgrade path, dyou can’t pay a tenner like you can do with Horizon Zero Dawn and get the shiny new version.
That’s not to say Ballistic Moon haven’t done a lot of work to enhance PS4 version. Obviously the biggest improvement is with graphics with the game teetering on the edge of being photorealistic in some places thanks to it being ported to Unreal Engine 5. Facial animations have been improved and subtly tweaked, the lighting is now more realistic – outside of the game starting at dusk, when it’s 9PM in the middle of winter – and the fixed ‘Resident Evil’ style camera has been ditched for a new third person view which allows you to move more freely through the environments and hunt out the collectables more easily.
There’s also a brand new score, reworked sound effects and the original songs have been replaced with more modern pop tracks, a couple of which are complete bops. According to Sony “We’ve endeavoured to keep the fantastic narrative integratory of the original, but we have seized the opportunity to expand upon unexplored emotional parts of the story,” which may be the case, but given the branching narrative of the game it’s hard to spot what is new and what you just didn’t see first time around.
The prologue is the most obvious change. Its now longer and the prank that kicks off the whole story has been reworked so it has more heft and emotional impact. There are also two new scenes at the end of the game which, in true horror movie tradition, tease that the story may not be over.
The many improvements to the game do highlight areas that have not been brought up to date. My main gripe is that characters can still only walk in circles, you cannot sidestep, and this means you do feel like you are controlling a vehicle rather than person. The animation of the character faces have been improved, but nothing has been done to the hair, Ashley’s long locks are resolutely stuck to the sides of her jacket and stretch in comically distracting ways when she turns her head.
There are also a smattering of bugs and glitches, like FMV cinematics juddering in the game’s intro, which definitely needs a patch.