Dubai: A group of teens in a backwoods lodge. A killer on the loose. A mysterious sanatorium. Ancient Native American burial grounds.
If this sounds like a 1980s horror movie, or one of Stephen King’s early novels, you’re spot on.
Sony’s Until Dawn, exclusive to the PlayStation 4, is one of the new breed of storytelling games — less game than a piece of interactive fiction. It’s the digital equivalent of a Choose Your Own Adventure book.
The closest equivalents would be David Cage’s Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls.
And while that won’t appeal to the lovers of shooters, it’s no less a gripping tale.
Until Dawn wears flaunts its influences with pride: Friday the 13th, The Shining, The Evil Dead. It revels in its homage to the classic scream flicks, and it leaves no trope untouched in its quest to get the pulse racing, the heart pumping and the nerves frazzled.
The game determines which of the teens you’ll be playing for any given scene, and you’ll cycle through most of them, assuming you don’t get them killed.
Interspersed with the creepy action in the backwoods are interviews between a mysterious patient and a psychiatrist — and soon becomes clear that these therapy sessions are far more than they appear.
While there are game challenges, these are mostly handled by quick-time events. The main input for the player is deciding how the various characters will interact with each other and the environment. Little decisions can have big impacts on the game: characters will fall out with each other, or bond, depending on your choices — and either could get them killed.
That also gives the game great replayability — there’s no way you can explore every option, or find all the evidence, with one play through.
Developers Supermassive Games call this the ‘butterfly effect’, and decisions are tracked in an information screen.
There are no manual saves, but many autosaves — which means there’s no going back on a decision once made, or replaying a failed move.
Graphics are gorgeous and very much in keeping with the claustrophobic nature of the game. While there’s the occasional jerkiness and the odd bit of stickiness between the characters and the environment, these are minor and largely irrelevant in an exploration/investigation game such as this.
Until Dawn is a radical change for Supermassive, known previously for light family games such as Start the Party and Little Big Planet DLC. It’s cinematic, story driven and, yes, both scary and gory.
If you’re looking for an action or combat game, walk on by, there’s nothing for you here. But if you’re looking for a deeply immersive, creepy tale that’ll have you on the edge of your seat (when you’re not jumping out of it), do not pass this one up.
Rating: 9/10
