4.5/5 ★ – Endless_backlog's review of Until Dawn.

13hrs With the Until Dawn movie out this month and the recent remaster being criticised as a downgrade I decided to give this another playthrough for probably my third or fourth time. Unfortunately, to really discuss the game I will need to heavily spoil the story. Ever since the success of Until Dawn, Supermassive Games have tried to replicate what made it special with their Dark Pictures Anthology. Personally it’s been hit and miss, as I enjoyed The Devil in me and House of Ashes but couldn’t stand Little Hope or Man of Medan. The structure for these games are similar, with branching storylines alternating depending on your actions. The fate of each character and the outcome of the story is in the control of the player, from how you respond in a conversation, what actions you take in stressful situations and how successful you are in executing QTE’s. Set in the remote Washington family lodge on the fictional Blackwood Mountain, the story begins when a cruel prank amongst a group of friends ends in disaster, causing the death of two sisters Hannah and Beth Washington. One year later, the brother of the deceased girls, Josh, reaches out to the others and offers them to return to his family lodge to try and reunite with the friends that have distanced themselves since his loss. The groups personalities fit the tone of the 80s slasher theme that the game goes for, with a solid voice cast including Hayden Panettiere and Rami Malek. The main story is broken up using interactions with a therapist played by Peter Stormare, as he quizzes you on how you are finding the experience and has you make decisions that reflect in the game. All of the cast are presented as themselves by utilising motion capture and the voice acting was brilliant for the majority. As mentioned earlier, your decisions will have consequences to the characters and ultimately who lives and dies is in your control. Some actions are more obvious like missing the very fast QTEs and subsequently dying, but the consequence of others won’t be revealed until later in the game. In the moments you are free to explore, you will find totems that give a preview of possible outcomes, which can help aid with your decisions later. Stalked by a psycho in a horrifying mask, the group are forced to survive the night as help cannot arrive until morning. As well as this, there is another mysterious stranger with a flamethrower out in the woods. However, both turn out to not be the threat they are believed to be, and in their place the real horror emerges when the creatures of the mountain known as The Wendigo start to claim their victims. I really liked the story of them and it was interesting to learn more about the folk tales of them in Native American history. It is said by the Cree that when someone is trapped on the mountain, starving and with no options for food, the spirit of the wendigo will start to torment the individual to resort to cannibalism to survive. Once they cave, the spirit will possess the individual and physically transform them into a different being. I also really liked the origin story of the Wendigos we see, being the trapped victims of a mining accident 60 years ago and how the spirit of the mountain punished their exploitation with this eternal torment. The appearance of the creatures was so interesting and looked great and equally terrifying in both the original and the PS5 remaster. Long extended limbs, and razor sharp claws help them run on all fours, scurry like spiders and climb walls. Their skin is decayed and stretched taut over their frame, with eyelids and lips lost to frostbite. Their eyes, milky white, now partly blinded and only able to see motion, relying on this to hunt. This is where the game introduces one of its most unique aspects in the “don’t move” feature, where players have to hold the controller perfectly still as any slight detection by the accelerometers in the controller will fail the moment and alert the wendigo. In the final scene in the lodge this is used expertly to create tension as it creeps around getting up close to your characters face. What makes the wendigo so fierce is not only how rapid they move or how violent they are, but their skin is bulletproof and fire is the only thing that can harm them. Evolving from humans, they can mimic their prey and in one chilling scene they call out in what sounds like a woman crying for help, only to be waiting to tear the victim apart. I really enjoy every time I play through Until Dawn and think it is fantastic in how the story continuously twists and turns to reveal new dangers to the group. There’s lots of symbolism, particularly in Hannah’s butterfly tattoo, which she originally only got to impress Mike. The obvious theme that shapes the whole game is the butterfly effect of how small actions can have grand consequences, but less obvious is the butterfly representing transformation, as her story begins with being a vulnerable, love struck, teen girl to an almost indestructible blood thirsty monster. One of my few gripes was that the game consistently reminds the player that Hannah has a butterfly tattoo throughout the game, in an attempt to ensure any players skipping past interactive elements won’t miss the big reveal of the tattoo on the Wendigos arm and the shocking revolution that Hannah survived, ate Beth and became the most recent Wendigo. The game also suffers slightly from illusion of choice, whereby regardless of the decision you make the outcome will remain the same in order for the story progress. Good examples of these are what you do with the sisters at the beginning and what you do in both of the Saw esque scenarios. I could talk about Until Dawn all day but my overall summary is that I highly recommend the original for how well it executed its unique style whilst delivering a genuinely interesting horror story.