I had never played Until Dawn, the hit PS4 horror game, until its controversial PS5 remake came out. I’ve never been the biggest fan of the “interactive drama” games that follow the model established by Quantic Dream, but I love campy horror so I was interested in this one. The Until Dawn remake was released back in October, but its poor technical state turned me away from it, following multiple patches it is now in a better state, which was enough for me to put in a dozen hours into it finally.
Let’s get the basics out of the way: Until Dawn follows a group of young adults haunted by a serial killer in a snowy lodge at the top of a mountain. With zero contact with the rest of the world, our (morally grey) heroes must survive until dawn for rescue services to reach them.
That sounds like a fairly simple premise, and it is for the most part, until the flesh-eating Wendigo monsters come into the picture. It takes a while for the game to kick its plot into high gear, and with the genre being a little dated, it might be tough for the remake to find a new audience.
The PS5 remake arrived as a hot mess. Capped at 30fps with colour grading that sapped the atmosphere out of the original’s art direction, I would not have recommended Until Dawn on PS5 to anyone, especially when the PS4 game was still playable, running at a 60fps output on the PS5.
In the month since its launch, the remake has been patched with a performance mode, and maybe it’s my eyes playing tricks on me but the colour grading seems more accurate to the source material. However, no amount of upgrades can make this any more impressive than The Last of Us Part 1, another unnecessary remake that somehow managed to carve out an identity of its own in this competitive market.
What about gameplay changes? The remake includes a new third-person camera angle, replacing the fixed camera of the original game. There are still moments where the game will pull back to a fixed camera, which comes across more as a homage than anything else. Does the new camera add anything new to the experience? Honestly, it’s fine. It doesn’t add anything, but it does make it more approachable to a modern audience that has grown up on PlayStation’s third-person action-adventure games.
This is a dark game, both in its story and literally in its visuals, more so than the original. I recommend setting up HDR properly on your TV while playing it in a dark setting, or turning it off if you’re rocking a lower-end display. This exemplifies my frustrations with modern TV shows and films, which rely less on focused lighting and more on creating “grounded”, contrasty images that don’t serve the storytelling.
While the visuals and sound have been upgraded, I can’t say the same for the gameplay. You’ll still be following characters while walking at a snail’s pace, and making last-minute decisions that alter the story’s path. Developer Ballistic Moon could have trimmed the pacing by speeding up the painfully dull opening segments but chose not to, resulting in a game that’s hard to recommend to newcomers.
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The butterfly effect system is still just as interesting as it was all those years ago, bringing more replayability to this game for those who get attached to these characters. And it’s the characters that are the strong point of the game. You hate some, you love some, but they all leave a lasting impact on you with their interactions. There’s enough differentiation between how Mike, Sam, Chris, Ashley, and the others act in tense situations to give them identifiable if predictable, personalities.
Let’s cut to the chase then: the Until Dawn remake has two new endings, both teasing a potential sequel following Sam and Josh. This begs the question: did Sony fund this remake just to lay the technical groundwork for a secret sequel? Or is this more of a transmedia push to pave the way for the upcoming Until Dawn live-action film? Both are good questions, but we’ll have to wait a while to see how it pans out.
Verdict
Until Dawn’s remake is not for everyone, and there are substantial arguments to be made that question its existence. As a product, it undermines the art direction of the original while providing marginal improvements to the core experience. As a story and a game, it remains as strong as it did on the PS4. Overall, I recommend picking it up only if you can’t find the original or if it’s heavily discounted.
Until Dawn is available on PC and PlayStation 5.
Disclosure: Sony India provided a review code for Until Dawn.
