Like many members of my generation, video games have played a big part in my life. I enjoy video games for the same reason I like movies and TV shows: They’re a great vehicle for showcasing creativity and, most importantly, telling a good story.
A video game’s narrative will always come first for me. Fun gameplay mechanics and striking visuals are one thing, but if a game’s characters or plot falls flat, I can’t bring myself to enjoy the project as a whole.
One game that I always return to is “Until Dawn.” Given that the game reached its ten-year anniversary last year, now is as good a time as ever to express my love for it and discuss why it’s still worth playing today.
Released by developer Supermassive Games for the PlayStation 4, “Until Dawn” is an interactive survival horror game that follows a group of eight friends who are trapped on a remote lodge on Blackwood Mountain in February. Being stalked by a mysterious psycho living on the mountain and wendigo, man-eating monsters, dwelling in its abandoned mines, the main cast has to survive over the course of ten hours and wait for rescue to come.
The core of “Until Dawn’s” narrative and gameplay is its “Butterfly Effect” system, where every player choice has the potential to significantly alter the story. Decisions that seem relatively small, like backing down in an argument or discovering a hidden item, can come into play later in the game.
The game’s cast members live or die depending on the choices you make, whether it be from dialogue decisions, your performance during quick-time events, or how you choose to explore its environments. With eight characters to play as across ten chapters, this leads to there being over 250 variations of its ending.
“Until Dawn” is relentless in its intensity, rarely giving you a break from the horror. Even on replay, whenever the “Butterfly Effect Updated” effect appears in the corner after making a choice, I feel either a sense of relief or a sinking dread.
When your decisions cause a character to die, you’re left to dwell on it and question what you could have done differently.
That’s what makes it so effective.
The game makes you responsible for this cast of characters. Their relationships, dynamics and survival are in your hands.
Speaking of the cast, another notable aspect of the game stems from the phenomenal performances.
“Until Dawn” brings together a tightly knit ensemble cast, showcasing standout performances from Hayden Panettiere, Brett Dalton, Jordan Fisher, and future Academy Award winner Rami Malek, amongst many others.
The cast allows these teens, who initially seem like standard horror movie character archetypes, to gradually reveal more depth through a variety of emotionally impactful moments. I deeply admire how realistically each member of the main eight is written. One can easily relate to and sympathize with them in their predicament.
The game’s performances are elevated by the revolutionary facial animation and motion capture (or mocap) technology used at the time, allowing for impressively detailed character models. The game’s visuals still hold up today, being rich in dynamic lighting and creepy atmosphere.
In nearly every way, I would describe “Until Dawn” as lightning in a bottle. Even a decade later, Supermassive Games hasn’t quite recaptured what made it so special in their later releases.
I tend to agree with the common sentiment online that their newer titles, such as “The Dark Pictures Anthology” and “The Quarry,” don’t reach the same highs. To me, their branching narratives feel more linear, with different choices leading to similar outcomes.
To be fair, “Until Dawn” set an insanely high bar in terms of story cohesiveness, immersion and meaningful moments. While it sounds pessimistic, I don’t think we will see another choose your own adventure game that can live up to its quality for quite some time.
The game was remastered in October of 2024, making slight improvements and updates to its animations and lighting. After years of anticipation, the remaster was also made available to play on PC, meaning that more people have the opportunity to experience the game for themselves.
Overall, “Until Dawn” is a game that I would recommend to practically everyone. The game is a love letter to the classic slasher films and horror tropes that embraces the genre’s themes without feeling cliché.
It is a tense, dramatic, choice-driven horror experience that delivers a gripping story where your decisions genuinely matter.