I like to be scared. There is an emotional and physical rush that comes from a good scare that can only be created by a few other activities in life. Because of this, I chase after the next scare with reckless abandon. I devour horror books, films, shows, and videogames. But while any horror media can be of inconsistent quality, none are quite as inconsistent as video games. The last horror game that truly had me on pins and needles was the WiiU launch title, ZombiU and I’ve been waiting for another game to give me that feeling again. Until Dawn is the game I’ve been waiting for.
Imagine you took a typical teen horror film, mixed it with the quick time event heavy design of Quantic Dream’s Heavy Rain and the choice based branching of Telltale Game’s The Walking Dead and you have the template for Supermassive Game’s Until Dawn. At the core of Until Dawn is a horror story that sees a group of friends returning to the site of a tragic event that left two of their friends missing and presumed dead. This re-connection of friends though isn’t going to be one that will be remembered fondly as an otherworldly menace is out to pick the friends off, one by one.
The protagonists of the game are ripped straight out of generic teen horror plot of the week. There is the bitchy one, the shy one, the nerdy one, the jock, the insecure one, and straight on down the line. Or at least that is how they appear at the start. The game allows you, through environmental actions and broad binary dialog directions, to shape the personalities of each one to better fit what you want. I was able to change the jerk jock character into a sympathetic romantic with a touch of a hero in him. Likewise I molded the bitchy and slutty stereotypes into more well rounded and ultimately better characters than their initial impressions put them at. Not only is it nice to be able to give these characters more depth but I was able to align myself with all of them much more than if this had just been a film, and that is the key to making this game work.
Most horror films today forget that to scare someone you need them to be emotionally invested in what is happening. I wasn’t scarred by the tragedy that happens in the opening moments of the game because I had no connection to the characters that it happened to. However after those deaths, the game slows down and allows you to really develop the characters and get attached to them before it starts systematically trying to rip their existence from your hands. And their continued existence is almost entirely in your hands based on the choices you make throughout the game, as well as the reflexes you have to get them through action sequences.
The choices you make impact the Butterfly Effect (yes, it is called that) system that will dictate how actions branch the story. These branches could be as simple as a character liking you for saying or doing something, to an item being (or not being) available based on prior interactions. Sometimes this can be infuriating, especially when you make a judgment that seems to make sense, like say handing a flare gun over to someone, only to have the game give a completely unexpected reaction, like said someone shooting off the flare gun immediately for no apparent reason. More than once the action didn’t necessarily correspond to what I wanted done, and it ended up screwing me in the end because it pushed me down a different Butterfly Effect path. Additionally there doesn’t seem to be a way to cancel choices once they’ve been made. In one instance I remembered something but I had been locked into that path despite there being no reason I wouldn’t logically be able to cancel out of said choice.
For the most part though, you have the knowledge prior to making a choice and if you happen to make a poor choice and you end up dead well, you still made the choice. This is less the case when the quick time events kick in. These QTE’s had me pressing the face buttons rapidly as they appeared on the screen, choosing a target and “firing” the trigger button, or holding the controller perfectly still. I failed exactly four of these QTEs throughout the course of my eight hour playthrough. The first one was a messed up high five and it didn’t have much impact on anything. Two of the other three times though, directly resulted in character deaths and I’m not sure either was my fault.
In one instance I had to target something quickly and press a button, I did this but it didn’t register my button press, resulting in my character dying. In the other I was tasked with not moving the controller and for some reason it failed me despite the fact that I had just completed that task twice in a row. I mean it is entirely possible that I twitched a bit but it being as I failed this QTE type twice in the game, I feel it may be just a bit too sensitive. Or maybe I’m just upset that the one character I was trying to save died moments away from escaping the game with her life.
Evidently it is possible to get through the entire game with all of the characters surviving but I was only able to save three of them. The deaths are properly horrific and fitting for the horror film genre. Although maybe not all fitting for the slasher genre subset the game makes you believe it takes place in. Until Dawn effectively plays with your expectations, setting up a My Bloody Valentine style slasher story but playing with that slasher genre subset by mixing in elements of Saw and The Descent along the way. Until Dawn isn’t what I was expecting and considering it comes from a genre that is often exactly what you expect from it, that was a welcome surprise.
Each twist is handled quite deftly and the game’s story kept me on my toes through most of the game as I tried to figure out exactly what was happening. Most importantly though it kept me tense as I was always wondering if this scene was the one where they were going to try and kill the character I was playing as. More often than not, it wasn’t but the constant threat of their death kept me on edge. It’s a wonderful feeling and I loved every minute of it. Except for the very end when my controller said I moved and I didn’t. But I’m not bitter or anything.
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