Until Dawn

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Until Dawn
File:Until Dawn cover art.jpg
Developer(s) Supermassive Games
Publisher(s) Sony Computer Entertainment
Director(s) Will Byles
Designer(s) Nik Bowen
Artist(s) Brandon Kosinski
Writer(s) Graham Reznick
Larry Fessenden
Composer(s) Jason Graves[1]
Platforms PlayStation 4
Release date(s) NA 2015082525 August 2015
PAL 2015082626 August 2015
UK 2015082828 August 2015
Genre(s) Interactive drama, survival horror
Mode(s) Single-player

Until Dawn is an interactive drama survival horror adventure video game developed by Supermassive Games and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 4.[2] It was originally scheduled to be released on the PlayStation 3 and feature PlayStation Move support, but in August 2014, the game was reintroduced as a PlayStation 4 exclusive,[3] and was released worldwide in August 2015.[4]

Set in Western Canada, Until Dawn centers around a group of eight teenagers who decide to vacation for a night in a cabin on the fictional Blackwood Mountain, exactly one year after the disappearance of two girls, who the eight friends were acquainted with. Shortly after arriving, the gang find themselves under attack by a "psychopath", and must attempt to survive until sunrise. Throughout the adventure, players alternate between all eight characters, making critical decisions as the story advances which drastically affects the game's outcome, leading to thousands of different scenarios.[5]

Until Dawn was met with a positive critical response upon release, with praise directed at the visuals, 'choice' mechanic, horror elements, music, characters, voice acting, and gameplay design. Most of the criticism the game drew concerned the second half of the story, the camera angles, character movement, and the game's partially linear plot.

Gameplay

Until Dawn is designed to be played multiple times, as players cannot see all content with a single play-through.[6] Each playthrough lasts about nine hours in length[5] and the game mechanics utilize an in-game system called the "Butterfly Effect" in which any choice of action by the player may cause unforeseen consequences later on.[7] For example, locating a weapon in an earlier chapter may allow the player to pick it up down the line when a chase scene leads back to the same room. Throughout the game, players will make difficult decisions during ethical or moral dilemmas, such as sacrificing one character to save another.[8] The Butterfly Effect system blurs the line between right and wrong decisions, and it is possible for players to keep all eight characters alive as well as having all eight of them die, allowing for many different paths and scenarios as well as offering several different endings for each character.[9] Until Dawn has a strict auto-save system to prevent players from reloading a previous save file to an earlier point in the game if they regret an in-game decision they have made. The only way to change the player's choice is to restart the game from the beginning or continue to the end and start a new game.[10] The developer has stated that Until Dawn has "hundreds of endings" but that should not be taken literally. Different endings have different variations depending on the combination of characters alive at the end of the game.[11][12]

The gameplay is focused on exploration, quick-time events and discovering clues as well as making decisions.[13] There is an in-game system that will keep track of all of the clues and secrets players have discovered in total, even if there are multiple playthroughs; these clues will allow the player to piece together the mysteries of Blackwood.[14] In terms of the gameplay mechanics and theme, Until Dawn has been noted to be similar to Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls.[15][16]

Plot

On 2 February 2014, seven friends: Sam (Hayden Panettiere), Mike (Brett Dalton), Chris (Noah Fleiss), Ashley (Galadriel Stineman), Emily (Nichole Bloom), Jessica (Meaghan Martin), and Matt (Jordan Fisher) are celebrating their annual winter getaway at the Blackwood Pines lodge, owned by their mutual friends, Josh Washington (Rami Malek) and his twin sisters, Hannah and Beth (Ella Lentini), located near Blackwood Mountain in Alberta, Canada. Mike, Ashley, Emily, Jessica, and Matt play a prank on Hannah because Hannah made a move on Mike who is in relationship with Emily at that time, and they all (especially Jessica) want to "teach her a lesson". Hannah is successfully pranked into opening her shirt to make out with Mike, and then flees into the forest in humiliation under the snowstorm. As Beth follows her into the forest and discovers her, the two are hunted by a creature that corners them to a cliff, where they fall to their deaths. The chapter is followed by a therapy session with Dr. Hill (Peter Stormare), who poses a question to his patient; these sessions will come up in following chapters and will affect what contents of the game will be shown. His patient is concealed with the first-person view.

A year later, the bodies of Beth and Hannah still haven't been recovered, and the seven are invited by Josh to attend another getaway at the Blackwood Pines as a celebration. At this time Jessica and Mike are in a relationship, as are Matt and Emily. As they arrive, Emily and Jessica get into a catfight, and Jessica decides to leave the lodge with Mike to stay at the guest cabin, while Emily and Matt decide to go back to retrieve Emily's bag which was left in the cable car station. Jessica is taken by an unknown creature after she and Mike arrive at the guest cabin, and depending on his choices Mike either finds Jessica dead or badly injured before the mine elevator collapses and takes her into the mines. Mike continues through the area, following a stranger who was lurking in the shadows, and enters a sanatorium, where he can befriend a wolf (one of the stranger's pets) as he learns about an incident in 1952 where 30 workers were trapped in a cave-in. Meanwhile, Chris and Ashley are attacked by a figure in a mask who kidnaps Ashley and forces her and Josh into a sawblade trap, forcing Chris to choose which one to save. Regardless of Chris' decision, Ashley survives and Josh is torn apart by the saw blades. Sam is stalked through the lodge by the masked figure and is either knocked unconscious or escapes into the killer's workshop. Returning to the cabin to search for Sam, Chris and Ashley are once again attacked and strapped to chairs. The figure forces Chris to decide whether to shoot himself or Ashley, and if he chooses to shoot Ashley it will lead to Chris's demise later. This is stopped by Sam and Mike, who have returned from the sanatorium, and the two discover that the guns are loaded with blanks. The figure is revealed to be a mentally unhinged Josh, who blames his friends for causing his sisters' disappearances. Josh explains that he had used a fake body to fake his death back in the saw trap, using pig blood and intestines. While he confirms having set up the traps, he denies having a role in Jessica's presumed demise, as he never wanted to actually kill anyone. Mike does not believe him and leaves Josh tied up in a shed.

Meanwhile, having met with Chris and Ashley before, Emily suggests to Matt that they should head to a radio tower for help. However, the tower collapses into an abandoned mine when she and Matt are attacked by unidentified creatures. Matt either escapes and ventures deeper into the mines, is killed by the creature, or falls off of a cliff during an earlier encounter with a herd of deer. Emily explores the mines, finding Beth's head and Hannah's personal effects, and learns that Hannah had survived her fall. She encounters the stranger that Mike had followed, who helps her escape from the creatures. In her escape, Emily can be killed or manages to get back to the lodge. She can also be bitten by the creature in her escape. If she survives, she tells the others of the creature and her discovery of Beth's head.

At the lodge, the stranger (Larry Fessenden) reveals himself and explains that the mountain was cursed by a First Nations tribe because people were destroying the nature in the area. The curse created creatures known as wendigos: humans who are starving to death in heavy winter storms on the mountain will eventually resort to eating human flesh, and eventually will be possessed by the evil spirits and turn into wendigos. He also explains that the wendigos hunt people from night until dawn. The wendigos are known for having hard skin, even gunshots cannot kill them. The only way to kill them is by burning them intensely, to free the evil spirits within them. Chris and the stranger attempt to free Josh in the shed, but find him gone, and the stranger is decapitated by the wendigos. Chris heads for the cabin, and is either killed by the wendigo, gets back to the lodge, or is left to die by Ashley if he tried to shoot her in the trap. If Emily is bitten by the wendigo, the group also debate on leaving her alone or to shoot her dead, fearing the wendigo bites are infectious. Either way, Mike goes to the sanatorium to find Josh, who has the key for the cable cars to get away from the lodge. Mike explores deeper into the sanatorium (and will be accompanied by Wolfie if the player befriends him on first visit) and find more clues about the miners who turned into wendigos, some of the wendigos which got loose chases Mike and he is forced to burn the sanatorium. Meanwhile after Sam and others found out about the wendigos from The Stranger's journal, they decide to follow after Mike. Ashley and Chris can be lured to their deaths by a wendigo pretending to be Jessica in the mines from the lodge to Sanatorium. Sam and Mike can learn that Hannah was turned into a wendigo when she resorted to eating Beth's flesh to survive. Mike and Sam find Josh in the mine (who was thrown into the mines probably by Hannah), who is suffering from extreme hallucinations of his sisters. As Sam decides to go back to the lodge to warn her friends, Mike and Josh are ambushed by Hannah and if the player found enough clues about Hannah's transformation, Josh recognizes Hannah and is dragged off. If not, Josh is killed by Hannah.

Meanwhile, if Jessica and/or Matt are still alive they regroup and attempt to flee the mountain as they are being chased by the wendigo. Mike and Sam return to the cabin to meet with the other survivors, only to find that the wendigos from the sanatorium got loose, and joined by recently turned wendigo, Hannah. The survivors freeze, knowing the wendigos can only see movement. More wendigos arrive and start fighting with Hannah, as the only source of movement they can see. While the wendigos are fighting, one of the wendigos was being thrown to the fireplace, breaking the gas pipe. Mike and Sam eventually decided to break a light bulb and using electricity to burn off the gas, exploding the lodge and depending on the player's actions, Sam and/or Mike and any other survivors can die before or while setting the lodge ablaze, but no matter what the lodge explodes and the wendigos are killed. The remaining survivors regroup as a helicopter locates them.

As the credits roll, those of the eight protagonists who did not survive have their death scenes replayed (with the time of their death added), followed by interviews with scenes of the police interrogation of the survivors. The police are warned by the survivors of what is within the mines. If Josh survived he's shown to now be in the process of transforming into a wendigo, if anyone else also survived then Josh is discovered by the police and he attacks them as the screen cuts to black.

Development

Until Dawn was announced for the PlayStation 3 at Gamescom 2012 and was originally set to use the PlayStation Move controller.[17] It was announced as a first-person video game, and the players were expected to use the PlayStation Move controller to control the flashlight and torch, as well as to switch between the game's eight different playable characters.[17] It was developed by Supermassive Games, who had previously worked on other PlayStation Move games including 2010's Start the Party!.[18] A trailer and gameplay footage was shown to the public.[19]

The game was originally set to be released in 2013. However, no more details about the game were provided, and the game had not been released as of late 2013. Until Dawn was reportedly cancelled, but Supermassive later clarified that the game was still in development.[20]

Until Dawn was re-introduced at Gamescom 2014. The title now served as a PlayStation 4 exclusive and would shift to a third-person perspective.[21] The PlayStation Move feature was replaced by the DualShock 4's motion sensor. In addition, the torch feature was scrapped in favor of a more traditional level approach, with the characters becoming playable at different parts of the game.[22] In addition to the trailer, a gameplay demo was released.[23] According to Supermassive, the game's transition from PlayStation 3 to PlayStation 4 has led the developer to rebuild the game and to rewrite its story, so as to create a more cinematic experience, and to make the game to feel "darker and fundamentally more terrifying". It has also been revealed that Until Dawn would utilize the upgraded Killzone Shadow Fall engine.[24]

On 26 May 2015, Sony announced that the game would be released on 25 August 2015.[25] Players who pre-order the game would receive a bonus mission which features Matt and Emily. Besides the game's standard edition, there are also an extended edition and a steelbook edition that is available for players to purchase.[26] On 31 July 2015, Sony confirmed that the game had been declared gold, indicating it was being prepared for duplication and release.[27]

As Until Dawn features gore and blood, a death scene was censored in the Japanese version of the game.[28][29]

Reception

Critical response

Reception
Aggregate scores
Aggregator Score
GameRankings 80.37%[30]
Metacritic 79/100[31]
Review scores
Publication Score
Destructoid 7/10[32]
EGM 8/10[33]
Game Informer 9/10[34]
Game Revolution 4/5 stars[35]
GameSpot 8/10[36]
GamesRadar 3.5/5 stars[38]
GameTrailers 8.5/10[37]
IGN 7.5/10[39]
Polygon 6.5/10[40]
VideoGamer.com 8/10[41]

Until Dawn received positive reviews. It received an aggregated score of 80.37% on GameRankings based on 71 reviews[30] and 79/100 on Metacritic based on 103 reviews.[31]

Lucy O'Brien of IGN gave the game a generally positive review, giving it a 7.5 out of 10. She praised the "creepy" environments, "tongue-in-cheek" tone, and the choices the player is forced to make. She did however dislike certain characters, particularly 'Doctor Hill', and the second half of the game, mostly the story's focus, calling it "silly" and "derailing". She thought that the game was flawed but enjoyable and felt that the story dragged down the game's overall quality.[39]

Game Informer's Jeff Marchiafava gave the game a positive review, with a score of 9/10. He praised the player decision making mechanic, which he felt dynamically changed the game's experience and story. He also praised the game's score, which he called "superb", the voice acting, the story, which was thought of as "intriguing and exciting", and the visuals. He called the gameplay "simple yet effective" and thought it was "engaging", but he criticized the game's animation, which he described as "awkward". Marchiafava stated that the game is a "remarkable experience that horror fans shouldn't miss".[34]

In her mostly positive review for GameSpot, Alexa Ray Corriea scored the game an 8/10, saying that she was surprised by the game. She particularly complimented the narrative because she considered its branching paths have significantly altered the game's story, saying "choices matter in big ways and affect the rest of the game". She also liked the actors' performances, calling them "incredibly good", and the overall replayability. Negative comments were concerning the story, mostly towards the end, and the "unflattering" camera angles. She also said "the visuals can be wonky at times".[36]

VideoGamer.com's Tom Orry gave the game a positive review. He scored it an 8/10, citing the horror elements, acting, "lovely" visuals, and the player choice mechanic as positives, even though he had some minor criticisms. Orry felt that the game had exceeded his expectations and added that the simple gameplay, alongside the story, successfully gives players a thrilling and malleable experience.[41]

Destructoid's Chris Carter gave the game a 7 out of 10. He praised the game's environments, collectibles, and premise. However, he criticized the game's story, which he thought was predictable, and the over-exaggerated acting. In addition, Carter felt that the game lacked meaningful choices.[32]

GamesRadar's Louise Blain gave the game a 3.5 out of 5, calling it a "beautiful" "bloodstained love letter to every horror movie you’ve ever seen". She enjoyed the jump-scares, pace, visuals, and overall tone, but criticized the game for being "painfully" short. She disliked the decision making mechanic as she thought that the system was diminished due to several set plot points.[38]

Giving a mixed review for Polygon, Philip Kollar scored the game a 6.5/10. He found the game "generic", even though he thought it had offered him a unique experience. He did not consider it a great game, but he thought that the game was good enough to keep him engaged. He added that the narrative structure of the game could serve as an example for future narrative-driven video games.[40]

Sales

The game was the sixth best selling weekly software in Japan, selling 17,472 copies. The release of this as well as Dragon's Dogma Online provided a slight boost in PlayStation 4 sales.[42] In the United Kingdom, Until Dawn was the second best-selling software for the week of 29 August 2015, debuting at No. 2 in the UK retail software sales chart, behind only Gears of War: Ultimate Edition.[43] According to the NPD Group, Until Dawn was the seventh best selling game in the United States in August 2015.[44] Supermassive Games stated that the sales of the game far exceeded their expectations.[45]

Accolades

Date Ceremony Category Recipient(s) and nominee(s) Result Ref.
2015 Golden Joystick Awards PlayStation Game of the Year Until Dawn Nominated [46]
Global Game Awards Best Horror Game Won [47]
Best Original Game Third
The Game Awards Best Narrative Nominated [48]
2016 New Statesmen's Top 10 Video Games of 2015 Best Game Seventh [49]
Hardcore Gamer's Best of 2015 Best Adventure Game Runner-Up [50]
PlayStation Blog's Best of 2015 Best PS4 Game Nominated [51][52]
Best Story Runner-Up
SXSW Gaming Awards Excellence in Technical Achievement Nominated [53][54]
National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers Performance in a Drama Supporting Brett Dalton as Mike Pending [55]
Use of Sound, New IP Until Dawn Pending
British Academy Games Awards British Game Nominated [56]
Game Innovation Nominated
Original Property Won
Story Nominated

Spin-off and potential sequel

In an interview with PlayStation LifeStyle, executive producer Pete Samuels stated that Supermassive Games is exploring the possibility of continuing Until Dawn.[45] A spin-off, titled Until Dawn: Rush of Blood was announced by Sony at Paris Games Week 2015. Described as an arcade shooter, the game's development began in the middle of Until Dawn's development. It is set to be released for the PlayStation VR.[57]

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  46. ↑ Reynolds, Matthew. (September 2, 2015). "Golden Joystick Awards 2015 voting now open to the public". Digital Spy. Retrieved September 5, 2015.
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  50. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  51. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  52. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  53. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  54. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  55. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  56. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  57. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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