Yeah I'm giving this a 4.5 I don't give a fuck honestly this is a hot take but this is by far my favorite PlayStation exclusive. Loved the horror atmosphere loved the story and found it extremely intriguing and the characters were great to be honest besides one but I'll give a character ranking shortly.

I did have two deaths happen throughout my playthrough first one was Emily which I caused on purpose because I fucking hate her guts and I also got Ashley killed because of a stupid mistake. Spoiler warning but instead of going with the group I went to check out the voice as soon as I selected that option I had a thought that these Wendigos could mimic voices and yes of course they can but I didn't want to restart my game and go back as that ruins the whole point of the game. I'm sure if I want with the group she would of survived.

Now I only played this during the night which might be why I took a lot longer to finish it then what I would of liked too I started at like 11pm on the 23rd but didn't play for long as I was too tired I can't recall playing any on the 24th but I did play for 4 hours last night and I finished this 23 minutes over 12 so I guess it really only took me 3 days to complete.

Now for my character rankings imma just get this out of the way but Sam was my favorite easily and she get's plus +3 points first point she played in my favorite film franchise Scream. second point is because Hayden Panettiere is just mummy and extremely bad and the third point is how bad she is like why is her in game character so bad like we needa talk about that ass as soon as she got the sport gear on I couldn't stop staring every time that ass was on screen. I'm so down bad bro. Anyway here are my rankings
1.Sam
2.Chris
3.Mike
4.Ashley
5.Jessica
6.Matt
7.Josh
8.Emily

Overall I love this game will probably replay sometime in the future I might even go for it's platinum.

After trying out the Dark Pictures games, and liking them a lot, I thought I need to check out Until Dawn, the first major Supermassive horror experience that is considered their best, and loved by many. After 6 hours, the credits rolled and I was left with a lot of questions, and most of them started with a "why". After consideration, I believe this is a "Walking Dead situation" all over again, when Telltale delivered a game that was so new to a lot of players, that they instantly loved it, no matter what.

In Until Dawn, you play as a bunch of teens, who are up in lodge with the host who invited them a year after a tragic accident that affected him mentally. The "party" is basically an excuse, they just kind of bonding and talking about the event that was taking a hold on the group, and not so long after the guests arrive, strange things happen. You need to make sure that the group stays alive, because any one of them can die a horrible death, and cannot be saved from what is lurking out there.

The main theme of Until Dawn is loss, nature and mental health with a bit of grief, love and survival sparkled in to make sure everyone is satisfied. What I really, and I mean really disliked about this game is the writing. Until Dawn tries to surprise you, making sure that you do not know anything for sure and question your choices during the game where you need to choose from 2 options. Rather than thinking fast, you need to think about the consequences of your actions, but certain events need to happen in order for the story to progress. No matter what you choose, certain things will play out the same way, as some of the cast has gigantic amount of plot armor. This issue was mainly a "me problem" I guess, because I experienced the Dark Pictures first, where totally different character moments can happen on different playthroughs.

Until Dawn's strongest aspect however is the fact that this cast is great and I really liked most of them. Usually, these games offer a wide selection of characters and most of them are annoying, but here, they managed to make most of them stand out on their own. I really liked Sam, Mike and Chris, Ashley had her moments, and I wanted to spend more chapters with Matt and Jessica.

However, the worst offender of them all, the gimmick that should have been great was Dr. Hill, who was so under utilized that after a big reveal, I almost felt betrayed by the writers. He is supposed to analyze the players actions, judge them based on their poor choices and make them question their own decisions. Pretty much like the Curator in the Dark Pictures, who is always there to mock you, or even support your decisions. Dr. Hill's whole character is a weak gimmick, and I am baffled that people are not disappointed how poorly he was implemented.

Overall, Until Dawn is disappointingly mediocre, and I do not understand why people love it so much. Do not get me wrong, it is decently made and offer some good moments, but it is just not up there with the Dark Pictures, and those, even in their weakest moments shine brighter than Until Dawn.

I don't think anybody expected Until Dawn to be as exciting and fun as it turned out being. Taking the choice-based/QTE genre into a classic horror setting which schlock characters was an absolute blast, as you're whisked through a narrative where any one of your playable characters are on the chopping block. The tension is high since your choices really do matter, but seeing the most annoying character go down can be darkly rewarding as well and the game is cool with that. Supermassive brought in some recognizable actors like Hayden Panettiere and Rami Malek for this one which only adds to the fun. All-around just a great time on the PS4 and very replayable too.

I’ve always felt like choice-based games get a bit of an unfair reputation.

And I’m not really sure how much of it is warranted or not. While the critique of “your choices don’t matter” levied ever since Telltale’s The Walking Dead came out is… certainly fair in regards to how a lot of games try to handle player choice, I do feel like at least a little bit of it is gamers hearing the phrase “your choices shape the narrative” and stretching it way beyond what would actually be feasible. Like, it's true that maybe games bottleneck you into the same setpieces/results regardless of what you do… but also the alternative requires wayyyyyyyy more scale than is even possible for a lot of these developers. As a fan of these sorts of games, it’s… mostly just an unwritten rule that there’s only so much a game can really branch out, and that when a game is truly capable of accounting for what the player does, it’s something special.

Until Dawn is one of those games.

The story follows eight young adults, one year after a prank caused the untimely deaths of their friends Hannah and Beth Washington. When the group is invited by Josh, the brother of the two deceased, to come back to the cabin where they died and celebrate their anniversary, as a method of commiserating and also moving on. However, it soon becomes clear that there’s some sort of malevolent force hunting down and attempting to kill the party, and it's up to you, the player, to take control of each character, go through QTE segments, make choices, and determine whether everybody dies, or manages to survive until dawn.

And… man, when this game says your choices matter, they really do. There are limits, obviously — the plot itself mostly goes down the same path and there are some characters who’ll stick around longer before they have a chance to die — but in regards to having the choices you make cause rifts and have repercussions down the line. Things that seem innocuous in the moment might come back later to make survival that much harder — if not just kill them outright. You’re even given a certain amount of leeway to determine what the characters are like: you can have jock Mike be the Ash Williams of the game… or you can have him be a total weenie who gets his ass kicked every time it's up to him to step up to the plate. You can have Emily and her rebound Matt bond together and have some genuinely cute moments together… or have them bicker at each other the whole way in a sea of pettiness. The possibilities… aren’t endless, but there’s a lot you can do, and for a game to be able to reach that sort of scale is honestly pretty incredible. I can’t stress that enough.

There’s… not really a lot that holds it back, honestly, though the bits that do are there and present and definitely knock it down a little bit. I say ‘bits’ when really the main one I want to talk about are the Don’t Move segments. See, in addition to QTEs (which… I’m fine with though I do wish certain life-or-death situations weren’t based on them), there are also other segments where you’re made to hold the controller and keep it absolutely still (because the PS4 controller has a motion sensor in it), causing you to fail if you move the controller outside the zone you started the event in. This is… kind of a fun way to implement motion controls in theory, but… it's very unforgiving. The zone you’re given is very small, to the point where even breathing can move you enough to make you fail which… as someone who gets muscle twitches is very rough but even regardless of that it's very easy to fail in a way that doesn’t feel like it's your fault. I can assume that this was a complaint for many both because I’ve seen a lot of people talk about it and also because I know how heavily nerfed they were in The Quarry (though that might just be because not every console has motion sensors), but it's sad to see something that… genuinely could’ve been a fun twist on the QTE formula work out as badly as it does.

…I realize, now that I’m this far into the review, that Until Dawn is… a bit of a hard game to review. Both because at least a little bit of it is wrapped up in spoiler stuff (tl;dr the story does a thing that’s spoilers that’s also a thing I absolutely love to see in fiction) but also a lot of what makes it work so well is… less in how it plays more in how it unfolds, which kind of makes it hard to describe for a text review like this. I’m not generally fond of seeing reviews that are just vague “try it, you won’t regret it,” but… if you’re into stuff based around player choice and you’re willing to look past sometimes iffy teen-movie writing and rough motion controls I really recommend you check this out. It’s one of the best Telltale-esque adventure games out there. 9/10.

And also, since one of my friends asked, here’s my character ranking of the eight teens, top to bottom best to worst:

Mike — easily one of the most malleable characters in terms of how you can portray him which is fascinating to see. I love my absolute loser <3
Emily — kind of loosely fun but mostly there for the first half of the game but once chapter 7 hits god she just steals the show. her shoving Ashley through the door <3
Josh — gets some of the most… weird 40-year-old-writing-teenager-lines but I’m really into how he’s portrayed and what he does in the plot
Chris — he’s generally fun and I like his relationship with Ashley, nothing much to say here he’s pretty cool
Jessica — sadly is out of focus for most of the game but I loved her before she ended up disappearing, she gets so many fun moments
Ashley — a bit too low-key of a personality but I like her general vibe and her relationship with Chris
Matt — has the same issue as Jessica but sticks out more because he has less of a personality
Sam — has the same issue with Matt in terms of personality but sticks out more because she's around the whole game

This game is so much fun in the most simple way possible.

I think the ideal way to play this is to rent it or borrow it from a friend. Spending your afternoon/night to power through this game is the perfect way to experience it (and at night is when you want to play it for sure). And most importantly, play it with a friend!

My wife and I rented this game when it came out from a Redbox, so we only had 24 hours to complete it. Luckily, it's already a short game experience.

And "experience" is really what I would call it. It's barely on the cusp of being an visual novel "walking sim". I think most people actually would call it a walking simulator, but I'm a little more lenient because I'm fond of this game I guess.

The story revolves around a couple mysteries, and it's fun as hell to figure out where things are going. It's also a horror game, so there's plenty of fun jumpscares. It's like an interactive campy horror flick (completely intentionally, by the way!). The characters are pretty much every trope from a horror film, too. In what would usually earn a yawn and eyeroll from me, there's reasons why they're all like that so I enjoyed it a lot. Some of the characters have a growth arc too, which is cool to see.

Even when you think you may have the story figured out, it's still really fun to watch it unfold.

Some cons:
- The facial expressions have some jank. Dark Pictures studio just.. is like that. All of their games have really janky facial expressions.
- Some absolutely BULLSHIT deaths in this game. But mercifully, you can save and load often. In my opinion part of the experience is reloading and trying again. Some scenes will absolutely have you tearing your hair out (its kind of fun, to be honest)
- A couple characters are really really irritating. But hey, they're supposed to be older teens/college kids so maybe it's more realistic for them to act the way they do. I was able to push past it, but I can see if other people can't.

Like I said, this game is best played with two or more people watching you play. They don't even have to pick up the other controller for the co-op--just have some people around to watch the madness and mystery unfold. Great fun!

clichê? sim
bom? sim
tive crise de pânico por motivo nenhum? sim

ou seja sensacional

butts.

the first mental note i made playing until dawn was "nice butt". game has some nice butts.

I sort of love the appeal, the concept, of these photorealistic story adventure games. like in theory they're the exact kind of game i'd like to make. perhaps because i'm lame and unimaginative and i need a "serious" game with a "serious" story to look "serious" and therefore real. this is maybe the first non-quantic dream one i've played though. i was partially lead to believe it was the antidote to david cage's ham-fisted narcissism. "it's a campy 80s thriller that doesn't take itself too seriously". but no, not really. it's almost a straight up, lame mid-2000s horror movie; a saw-like torture porn clone with an extra layer of unnecessary meta cheese on top.

i loathed, loathed the first half of this. mechanically clunky and banal to play. almost nothing to actually do or see. the characters all seemed like utterly awful human beings to be around too. smug, mean bullies. the game starts you off blind, as these teens play a prank on a girl that has almost no context behind it, and is not even a prank either really. like, make it a Carrie styled pig's blood act of absolute malevolence or make it a normal romantic rebuff gone awry or something small. it's a weird thing to get hung up on but it was just such a lame way to kick things off. the characters are made worse, too, by how the facial capture technology makes just about every one of their performances look like this in any given moment:
https://frinkiac.com/img/S06E06/379328.jpg

there's whole meta interstitial therapist gimmick in here too that's grating. I could kind of tell immediately which character is in the therapist chair as well. the game has no clever fake outs. it telegraphs every "twist" each step of the way for you. i kept feeling smart for clueing in as to what's going down but only because the game hangs each story beat on a giant glowing hook for you to discover.

things clicked a little more for me in the second half though, mostly because it vaguely cohered into the game i utterly wished it was: like a gossip girl/OC teen romance sim. okay, it never coheres into that, but this game gives the game's central bitch character, Emily, the line "understand the palm of my hand, bitch", and i was just like where has this attitude been all game, i could really use more of this. you isolate all these horny, mean teens in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, i was hoping in between the Scooby Doo of it all that they'd be more personal dynamics and capital-d Drama at play. but despite that being the game's biggest appeal, it winds up more of a dream or promise because the characters are separated for most of the game - first in pairs, and then the central three (Sam, Mike and Emily) by themselves.

some of these isolated sequences i liked quite a bit though. i can't deny i really dug Mike - the big dumb typical video game himbo, just kinda stumbling his way through various cliched horror setups. he gets a wolf companion at one point and i liked that level of unashamed pandering.

Emily, who until her sequence, spent most of the game shitting on others, stumbles her own way alone through a lame direct-to-DVD Descent movie, which i also have to admit i liked. it's shallow characterisation, the tortured femme who has to fight her solitary way though adversity, like the story is her trial. but i think that stuff works the same way bread and butter work as a snack.

and there's sam who spends 20 or 30 mins running through the lodge in only a towel, the closest to what my expectations for this game here were. i must confess i do find playing as female characters in games maybe the most freeing, so i'd be lying if i said i didn't enjoy playing as Sam in a towel 😔.

i think back to my initial mental note: butts. and i think part of the appeal of photorealistic graphics for me is the allure of equally realistic scenarios. but, until dawn, like all of quantic dreams' games, still couches itself in fantasy and video game make believe nonsense. these characters look real, they may even behave realistically and give the illusion of having real emotions but their still written into a set of very limiting video game constraints.

until dawn, for instance, is a game that has some of the most realistic, foul-looking gore but god forbid any of these characters get down and do something more common and real and bone. i am might not saying i necessarily want an awkward QTE sex scene or a gratuitous boob shot but i think it's a shame games are still more afraid of sex than violence (kind of funny for a game that's using a slasher motif that normally demonises sex) and that they don't/can't use these kinds of graphics to explore more, equally realistic acts of humanity.

i mean, it's a bit of tease to get behind the steering wheel and take control of some of the most realistic digital human avatars and instead of being able to explore what that means and feels like in any depth, you're stuck in a bad slasher movie.

anyway. i think on what games that look like until dawn could be versus what they actually are leaves a lot to be desired. i'd take even a proper catty drama, confines that these characters work well within. i am not even mentioning the breadth of choices games like this could present you with that could go beyond that of "save x or y or none".

Out of all the interactive movie games throughout the years from Heavy Rain to the various Telltale games, I would have to confess that Until Dawn is my personal favorite.

The game isn't flawless but it is a fun, campy ride throughout and knows not to overstay its welcome. The characters are diverse in their personalities and the game does a good job dedicating enough time to each character to get to know them.

The choices you make impact the fate of all the teens. When you couple this with the short time to playthrough and it makes replaying through enticing rather than exhausting.

The plot is standard teen horror movie stuff but the voice acting featuring several Hollywood actors is what elevates the story and makes it engaging.

Additionally, the visuals are quite great for its age and the console it is on.

If you own a PS4, I highly recommend Until Dawn for a campy teen horror movie where you get to be behind the driver wheel.