Until Dawn - Review

Callum Munro

(I try my hardest not to spoil any major parts of the plot) 

My reviews are split into 3 sections that are rated out of 10, CONCEPT (The aim/idea/plot of the game), VISUALS (What the game looks like), GAMEPLAY (How the game plays and how fun it is).

Until Dawn is the latest Playstation 4 exclusive, developed by Supermassive Games. 

It is an interactive choice & consequence horror game, and you can buy it at the moment for only £39.94 at www.shop4world.com. 

Concept/Story

The story of Until Dawn takes place around eight friends who revisit a cabin in a remote mountain escape, one year after two of their friends died at the exact same place.

It is ultimately one big horror cliche, and although there were some parts that I wouldn't have guessed, it still didn't seem original. 

Where Until Dawn's story shines however, is through its concept of character relationships and traits, and a massively in depth choice and consequence system that puts all of the Telltale games to shame.

The idea of the game is that your choices and consequences will completely shape the story, allowing you to actually dictate (not directly) who will survive the post credits of the game. 

These choices begin immediately and are sorted neatly in the Butterfly Effect section of one of its many in game menus, but the main consequences don't begin to be apparent until the last stretch of the game. 

This isn't to say that your choices don't matter until that part of the game, because they most certainly do, and actually leaving the more impacting consequences until the last few hours of the game actually helps show how robust the system is.

Through having this system in place, Until Dawn makes you want to play it again and again to see how the story may have played out if you did certain things differently, and even though there are quite a few games that have non-linear paths to promote how re-playable the game is, I personally cannot think of one that will give you a genuine different story the second time you play it, aside from Until Dawn. 

The second half of the game does become much more "no holds barred", and with the introduction of a new evil and a few choice driven plot twists, the game becomes much more fast paced. 

A lot of people have criticized the second half of the game, but I actually think its a welcome change in pace, that comes at the exact same time that the plot changes.

One downside to the story for me was that some of the voice acting and dialogue seemed a little strange at times, and definitely interrupted some eerie and tense moments.
This is in no way a dig at the voice acting itself, but in certain places it could have been used very differently.

Until Dawn has every horror cliche in the book and some strange choice in dialogue at times, but with choices & consequences that actually affect the storyline and incredibly in depth characters, Until Dawn boasts a brilliantly polished story and concept, which is genuinely scary.

STORY/CONCEPT - 8.8/10

Visuals

At times Until Dawn looked photo realistic. The environments, lighting and in particular the scenes with the doctor truly were a joy to look at. 

The motion captured characters who all resemble their respective actors were all probably the best and worst part of the visuals for me. Most of the time, they genuinely resembled movie characters, due to their fantastically modeled and rigged faces, and very realistic clothing. 

However, even though the facial expressions are brilliantly done, the animations can sometimes look quite weird and awkward. This is obviously due to how detailed the facial expressions are, but similarly to how the excellent voice acting suffers in how its used, the exact same applies here. 

Until Dawn looks incredible, every single part of the world is polished to perfection. The only downside is that the facial expressions are so complex, that they can sometimes look quite strange. 

VISUALS - 9.3/10

Gameplay 

Until Dawn is very similar to the gameplay style of the Telltale games. You walk around certain locations, looking for items to help you progress, with a fairly decent amount of exploration. Then when there are action events, you will push a few buttons in an allocated time. 

This works fine, and with the classic fixed cameras similar to that of the old Resident Evil games, it feels good. 

It does however get fairly repetitive, and towards the end of the game, I found myself trying to speed run the gameplay parts simply because the QTE sections were the only parts that were actually fun, and progressed the story in some way. 

Dont get me wrong, there is plenty of interaction so we don't have the same issue as Everybody's gone to the Rapture or The Order. Also the environments look fantastic, especially with the interactive flash light, and there are often things going on in the background that keeps you checking and analyzing your surroundings.

BUT, after trudging forwards at a brisk walk through these environments can get very tiresome. I just kept feeling that the game should be making me lost, so that I have to find my way around these places rather than simply holding down L1 and walking forwards to the next cutscene. 

Until Dawn uses a good amount of interaction to stop it from suffering the "Walking Simulator" disease, but it doesn't implement enough survival horror core gameplay elements to keep its gameplay fun. 

Gameplay - 6/10

Overall Until Dawn certainly surprised me. For a game that I thought was going to be a cringey Western horror game full of cheap scares, actually turned out to be an extremely well thought out and polished game with tons of reasons to come back to its choice driven story again and again.

Plus its very scary! 

As always thanks for reading.

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