Until Dawn - Review

Until Dawn was originally announced as a PS3 title but then transferred on PS4 and also take a new stylistic direction from just as a schlocky teen horror game/movie.

The until dawn developers have taken the horror movie cult as cabin in the woods, Wrong Turn etc, which a group of teenagers go for sort of time in a house on mountains and there take place all the game.

For start I will keep this review briefly for those they haven’t played the game yet to avoid potential spoilers to give them opportunity to enjoy it, to get stressed, to horrified and surprised like we did.

The story begin with a group of teenagers friends in an isolated house in the woods where they went to have fun and some members decided to make a prank on one of the girls named Hannah witch make her mad and run away, her sister Beth followed her and the two girls separate from the rest of group. In a short run in the woods the girls suffer an “accident” and fell from a cliff and died. After a year the friends gather again to the same house in memories of their lost friends and of course a many things have changed between them and then the story continues.

The gameplay has a lots of QTE’s (Quick time events), a lots of differents decisions to take and a new mechanic where you must stay still and don’t move the controller (some time I have to put it down on my desk to stay perfectly still). All the mechanics of the gameplay take an important role to keep you alert for all the time you play.

The game mechanics is based on butterfly effect system where every choices and decisions we made has immediate effects on the player/players or it will affect you in some time during the game, for example which path the player will take, if we open a hatch or not, if we give an item to a player or keep it. Although the choices you made the end of the game will be the same, you can’t change it. Your decisions will have as result in how many of your player will survive until dawn. Also the game provides you with a help if you gather totems, where it shows you possible predictions for the future and you can avoid them. The totems are hidden throughout the game and they can show you death, guidance, loss, fortune and danger. There are a lots of others collectables too where they revealing you further information on the game.

Also with those decisions you can change the player's characteristics (brave, curious, romantic or honest) they are as how well or not they have with other characters. This some time may help you if you have good relation between the characters on the game or cost the live of a player. 

Game graphics are absolutely amazing and quite realistic from the landscapes, to the characters and everything presented in the game. Also the shadows are incredibly detailed that you think there are true. Also something that impress me is the storyline which kept me confined throughout the game and the fact that everything can change with one different decision made me to like it even more.

A negative think that I complaint for the game is the facial animations where personally I think they needed a little more work to be more easy for you to distinguish the player feelings.

The Actor Cast are:

• Hayden Panettiere as Samantha Giddings
• Peter Stormare as Dr. Hill
• Rami Malek as Joshua Washington
• Brett Dalton as Michael Munroe
• Meaghan Martin as Jessica Riley
• Galadriel Stineman as Ashley Brown
• Noah Fleiss as Christopher Hartley
• Nichole Bloom as Emily Davis
• Jordan Fisher as Matthew Taylor
• Antonella Lentini as Hannah and Beth Washington
• Larry Fessenden as The Stranger

Developer : Supermassive Games

Publisher : Sony Computer Entertainment

Available for : PlayStation 4

Release date : August 26, 2015