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A horror classic returns

Until Dawn was a first of those horror movie-like games that I truly liked back in the day. The developer Supermassive Games did a great job to combine movie and video game format. There is even a movie adaption in the works with the original cast that includes actors like Hayden Panettiere and Rami Malek. Until Dawn was originally released on PS4 back in 2015 which is almost ten years ago! It still feels like yesterday I played this game. Until Dawn PS5 remastered/remake—whatever you wanna call it—was released on October 4, 2024, just for the Halloween scares. The game saw new things such as overhauled graphics and gameplay mechanics, but does it offer anything worthwhile to buy it again?

So the horror begins… again

The plot of the Until Dawn PS5 version remains the same. Well, there were some little differences here and there such as in the ending. But about the plot; bunch of teens goes to a lodge in the mountains and soon they realise that they are being hunted down one by one. Some of them stay in teams of two and some are left alone. There are not just a murdered in the premises, but also something else—something otherworldly. So the teens must survive by any means necessary.

The plot was good, just as the original, it doesn’t overstate its welcome nor there were anything extra in my opinion. It was paced correctly to build up the tension, suspense and horror, keeping it up all the way to the end.

Gameplay, controls, audio and visuals

The gameplay in Until Dawn was pretty same as in the original release. As a reminder; Until Dawn isn’t a shooter nor even an action game. It’s mostly a choice-based game. Of course you control the characters, walk around and find items, and do QTEs which were the most gut-wrenching moments in the game as failing them sometimes meant certain death.

Your job as a player is to keep the characters alive until dawn. I didn’t manage to keep everyone alive, but at least most of them survived. It did help the gameplay as I played the original version so I did knew what’s gonna happen. Until Dawn has a system called “butterfly effect” meaning your choices has consequences that shapes the story as you go, so there are lots of different outcomes on situations.

So here comes the controls of the game; they’re still janky as hell! Don’t get me wrong the game is playable and all but the controls feels outdated and slow. Even the aiming was little bit too precise but it did help to turn on the “aiming assist” in the settings. Also everything player has to do in the game feels very finicky such as opening doors and doing little things like that. I did like how PS5 version used all the Dual Sense controller’s gimmicks, such as adaptive triggers, haptic feedback and motion controls. (Motion controls were only used in the “don’t move” segments where you must stay absolutely still).

The voice acting was as in the original version, it was good but sometimes little bit awkward to listen as it felt overacted or badly written. The music was very movie-like and all the sound effects great.

Visually Until Dawn looked beautiful. The original release did look good as well, but in this PS5 version they utilised Unreal Engine 5, which is the newest craze in the gaming industry. I did have some bugs on the game which couple were game-breaking, the game even crashed once through my gameplay.

I did survive until dawn… mostly

Until Dawn on PS5 was a good experience, maybe just OK. I played it through in about 6 hours. It might feel little bit outdated with the slow and janky controls, but the game is very much re-playable (and recommended so if you want to find out all the secrets and outcomes). But if you wanna play Until Dawn for the very first time I suggest this PS5 version out of the original for sure, even though it kinda felt like the game didn’t even needed a remake in the first place. Is it worth paying a full game price that was for me 70€. The answer is no.

Until Dawn is available on PS5 (reviewed) and Windows.

SCORE:

3/5

“…game is playable and all but the controls feels outdated and slow”

RELEASE DATE: October 4, 2024
GENRE: Horror
DEVELOPER: Ballistic Moon
PUBLISHER: Sony
PLATFORMS: PS5 (reviewed)
Windows

 

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