The best game supermassive made. After a disappointing experience with last year’s "The Devil in Me" and mixed feelings about other entries in the Dark Pictures Anthology, I approached "Until Dawn" with a mix of eagerness and caution. This game, developed by Supermassive Games, marks the studio's initial foray into the narrative-driven horror genre that would spawn the anthology series I've come to associate with my yearly spooky season ritual.

Despite my reservations, stemming from recent letdowns in the series, "Until Dawn" proved to be a compelling rediscovery of what initially cemented Supermassive Games as a notable developer in interactive horror.

Narrative and Character Depth:
"Until Dawn" features a group of teenagers who reconvene at a remote mountain cabin on the anniversary of a tragedy that befell their friends. Unlike the cardboard cutouts that plagued my playthrough of "The Devil in Me," the characters in "Until Dawn" are surprisingly multi-dimensional. Characters like Mike and Emily, who initially come off as stereotypical horror archetypes—the jerk and the bossy girl—gradually reveal deeper, more relatable facets of their personalities. Mike shows genuine care amidst the chaos, and Emily’s tough exterior cracks to unveil insecurities that enrich her character beyond initial impressions.

Gameplay and Mechanics:
The game operates on the “butterfly effect” mechanic, where every decision impacts the story’s progression and outcomes. This not only adds weight to each choice but also significantly boosts the game's replayability. Players find themselves pondering the ramifications of each decision, knowing that even seemingly minor actions can have far-reaching consequences for the characters’ fates.

Visuals and Performance:
"Until Dawn" excels in areas where its successors have faltered. The facial animations and voice acting are top-notch, contributing to a richly immersive experience. Emotional nuances are captured with a precision that I found lacking in later titles like "The Devil in Me." This attention to detail in visual storytelling amplifies the tension and emotional gravity of the narrative, pulling you deeper into the chilling atmosphere of the game.

Plot Intricacies:
While certain plot elements can feel predictable—such as the twists involving a tattoo and an ill-conceived prank—the story remains engaging. These moments, although easy to guess for seasoned horror aficionados, are crafted well enough to maintain suspense and intrigue. The narrative cleverly weaves together classic horror tropes with fresh twists, keeping players on edge and invested in the characters’ survival.

Conclusion:
"Until Dawn" stands out not only as a pioneer for Supermassive Games but as a benchmark in interactive horror storytelling. Its ability to blend character depth with gripping narrative choices sets a high standard that subsequent titles in the genre struggle to meet. The game captures the essence of a horror movie marathon, complete with all the thrills, scares, and last-minute saves you'd expect.

Despite a few predictable plot points, "Until Dawn" is a masterclass in how to craft a compelling, choice-driven horror game. It serves as a stark reminder of the potential within the genre when executed with care and creativity. For those looking to fill the void left by this year's delayed Dark Pictures installment, "Until Dawn" offers a thrilling, chilling adventure that’s sure to satisfy your horror cravings.

Got a couple hours into the game, so this is a first impression review.

I decided to play until dawn because im a fan of the telltale games and horror movies, and this looked like the perfect blend. And, I'm happy to say that the blend worked well and was a really cool idea. Like I said, i only played a little bit of this game so i can't comment on the full game story but the parts i got was really good, and the story is clearly Until dawns biggest strength. The setup and the beginning was a good intro/tutorial, and the set up of each character was great to see as it makes the characters more than just random teens.

The biggest flaw i found was with the gameplay, and i don't mean the fact its 90% cutscenes and all that. I love that type of gameplay, but i found until dawns a little weird. mainly (on ps5) moving the joystick to pick choices, which felt unnatural and odd. The gameplay as well felt a little bit clunky and i didn't love the camera angles.

Little things i loved as well was the mystery clues that you can find, my favourite being for the serial killer. These little clues scared the shit out of me and was really effective in boosting the story. I also loved the therapists scenes which was creepy and chilling and again boosted the story.

In conclusion, the couple hours of until dawn i played showed a lot great potential, with the story's beginning being engaging and looking to set up a great horror experience. The gameplay was a little clunky and i felt it needed some simplification and tweaking, which if i ever play the quarry or if supermassive games put out a sequel i would love to see what they do.

Ótimo jogo de terror e suspanse. Talvez um dos melhores exclusivos da Playstation 4. Um jogo com uma história muito padrão mas ainda assim muito bem construída. A experiência coloca o jogador sobre uma pressão quase que constante. A sensação de que uma falha nalguma parte do jogo pode causar a morte de um personagem é quase que constante. Os próprios personagens tem um sistema interessante de interelações que pode afetar algumas das decisões da história. Em relação ao modelo, acaba por ser bastante semelhante a outros jogos com o mesmo tipo de gameplay como Detroit: Becoma a Human ou Heavy Rain.

Until Dawn is a better video game than it is a movie, but it's the theatrical cinematography that helps take the game over the edge. This is a spoiler-laden review so if you have intentions of playing Until Dawn in the future I'd recommend you don't read further. Scroll below Shrek for the rest of the review
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There's a lot to like about Until Dawn. It is genuinely a scary experience at times, especially due to the interactive nature. It uses lots of familiar horror movie tropes, and subverts some of them too that all work well to give you an experience that feels like some sort of generic R-Rated Teen Horror Movie rip off. While that likely wouldn't fly in a movie theater with a $15 ticket and $10 popcorn, it works really well with controller in hand.

Particularly in the game's first two acts, it is tense and suspenseful and keeps you on edge. The dialogue isn't particularly good, but the characters are strong and the relationships clear. It's particularly enjoyable to roleplay or alter these relationships, watch the dialogue change and see the relationship meters flux. Even if some of these choices don't alter the big picture scope of the game, it's nice to see the little changes in character interaction.

Overall the gameplay is suitable for how minimal it is. The Resident Evil style fixed cameras and odd angles add to the uneasy and suspenseful feelings by always preparing you for something to jump out from around a corner. The movement is a bit janky but I think it's a part of the game's charm. It adds to the scariness. As the camera angles flop from room to room the orientation shifts in a way that pushing your character forward requires spinning the stick. You can get caught on objects or doorways or even other characters. While it can cause the occasional frustration it does help further the spookiness of the game such that I somehow found it to be more feature than bug.

The game's strength through and through is the movie-like cinematography that it employs. There are tremendous shots and camera usage that give a cinematic heavy game good weight and feel. When the camera pans past Sam in the bath to reveal the Psycho ominously behind her, chills shot up my back. The camera panning behind Mike and Sam as they make their way into the Wendigo feeding nest to show the Wendigo in the water is one of the coolest shots in the game. And then, the pièce de résistance is the cutscene with Josh and the images of his dead sisters, where Hannah rips off her face and the girls spawn out a pile of pig guts. The entire scene had my jaw on the floor and when it ended I had an involuntary smile and chuckle that was equal parts scared, awed and impressed. A really, really cool scene that I wanted to rewatch almost immediately. An all-time cool scene in any media I've seen.

Until Dawn creates an experience. It's thematic, atmospheric and suspenseful. It feels like an interactive movie and the interactivity ups the scariness several notches. It's still a fairly unique game even compared to like games (Detroit, Heavy Rain, Bandersnatch, Telltale games etc). The little bits of lore and b-plot type background stories you uncover only adds to that. The first jaunt through the sanitorium with Mike is absolutely terrifying.

It's not all without rebuke though. Until Dawn has a handful of problems that dock the experience in notable ways. The dialogue is very bad and it's a real shame given the relatively star studded castlists. While they have their moments, Panetierre and Malek just weren't given much to work with. The plot also throws a few too many spanners into the works in an attempt to knit together what seem like disparate storylines. The games third and final act moves at a whiplash pace piecing together bits and ballooning the story into something grander than it needed to be.

The game was at its scariest up to and perhaps even immediately after the reveal of Josh as the Psycho. To that point the game was just a big mystery that was slowpaced and haunting. So many questions, so many events, so much creepiness all about. Shortly after the reveal of Josh we have one answer but still plenty of mystery and creepiness. Then we find out that the stranger in the mines is a good guy though, and another scary thread is dropped. No more psycho, no more mines guy. Most of the mystery was gone now. Suddenly the stranger is a deus ex machina with weaponry and knowledge and benevolent assistance that thrusts the last two hours of gameplay into a wendigo-hunt and wendigo horror story. While it has its moments, I was very unsatisfied with the brief time we spend with the stranger and even more unsatisfied with a story that seemed to be about the evilness of humans abstracted into something supernatural.

The biggest source of suspense and fear was from the unknown. Suddenly we had one enemy, we knew exactly what it was, exactly what it looked like, exactly what it could do and couldn't do. We had all the rules and the formula. As an audience the biggest driving suspense was gone. While the wendigos end up being plenty scary on their own it shifted the tone of the game considerably. And it took the game from a jog to a highest-setting treadmill sprint.

Mechanically, I wasn't a big fan of the collectibles. I really did enjoy them, what they were and what they added to the story. What I didn't like was going about finding them, especially the totems. In a game that was already largely pretty linear and really reliant on suspense with janky movement controls, searching for the collectibles just didn't feel fun. It slowed the game down a bunch, it cut suspense too much when I was walking through every corner of big rooms while my companions raced ahead. Too many doors that didn't open or corners with nothing in them meant I was spending a lot of time walking into corners for no reason instead of going headlong from scary moment to scary moment. If their big appeal was as a way to space out scariness or pad gameplay time I could've done with more dialogue and character interaction instead.

I also felt the game ran a little too long for a game that is clearly supposed to be played multiple time. The ability to hop in and out of chapters after beating the game is handy but any given chapter can take an hour or two especially with unskippable cutscenes. Because the game itself took me just shy of 12 hours to get through the first time, it's a bit daunting to want to play again, since generally it doesn't seem like much of the ending really changes. The ending itself, including the secret ending I did achieve, felt a bit flat but that makes sense if you're supposed to do this 3 times or more. In the end I didn't feel like I wanted to hop back in to experience it but rather went to YouTube to watch some clips instead.

Until Dawn was cool. Happy to have played it. Would recommend to others especially if free or on decent discounts. Neat game.

Awesome game if you like horror movies. It has the right amount of cheese, horror and action. I love the psychological analysis of the characters throughout and how they change as people. I think Wendigo’s are very scary so this definitely got my heart racing. The deaths and jumpscares are TERRIFYING and I love the ‘keep-still’ mechanics, I can feel myself trembling. The only thing I think is disappointing are the quick time event buttons. They switch in an according pattern so they become less panic-inducing when you learn said pattern. Still a must play though.

WHY WAS THIS ACTUALLY GOOD?

It wasn't perfect, but the narrative was solid and Supermassive Games made one of the best design choices ever: they made the story develop the more you explored the levels. Entire lines of dialogue change depending on whether you picked up a collectible or not. The game literally tells you to explore the game to uncover the story from the beginning. The game makes sure that if you missed out on what was going on, it was YOUR FAULT, not the game's. If the story didn't make sense to you by the end, the characters didn't figure it out in your playthrough either. It all feels intentional and not only increases the replay value, but never makes the player feel like they missed out on something. Regardless of how you decide to play the game, the story works. And thanks to the game communicating that to me, I had no trouble with the fact that the story is entirely dependent on collectibles (which is a BIG pet peeve of mine). It made it clear to you that that was the point.

This game also lacks the Detroit Become Human's pointless QTE segments. The QTEs are only used when the game has something going on and never to just pad out the runtime. This is also one of the best uses of the Dualshock controller in a PS exclusive game (those "Don't Move" segments had me shitting myself a couple of times). It also helps that the story is pretty good too. It's well paced and what starts out as a game about a bunch unlikeable teens turns into a crazy good thrill ride in which you like almost all of them by the end. Ending of the game gave me some early Stranger Things vibes. Mike and Sam were by far the strongest characters in the entire game. Emily is the ONLY character in the entire thing that sucks from start to finish, and even she gets one of the best chase sequences in the game. The central mystery is interesting and has its own fair share of twists too.

Honestly, this is my favorite choice game of all time. Better than anything Quantic Dream and Telltale have put out, no exaggeration. Supermassive knocked it out of the park and I genuinely want to redownload it just from typing this review. Definitely check this one out!

Já tinha jogado a muuito tempo atrás então já tinha me esquecido de quase tudo e também esqueci o quão bom esse jogo é com uma história incrível, personagens muito legais(Alguns nem tanto) e uma gameplay esperada pra um jogo de escolhas, isso tudo sem contar o fato de que Until Dawn teve um impacto muito grande na indústria dos jogos na época sendo um dos pioneiros ai dos jogos de escolhas.
Ele não é perfeito, tem algumas coisas que envelheceram bem mal(A captura facial é um exemplo) mas tirando essas coisinhas ali e aqui, o jogo é maravilhoso que me fez zerar quase de uma vez (Coisa que eu nunca fiz). Agradeço a todos os envolvidos por essa joia no mundinho dos jogos.