Until Dawn

“

Live or die. You decide.

”

Until Dawn is an interactive drama survival horror adventure game developed by Supermassive Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4, and was originally released worldwide on August 25, 2015.

At the 2023 Game Awards, it was announced that a remake was in development by Ballistic Moon for the PlayStation 5 and PC. The remake was released on October 4, 2024.

Plot[]

Prologue[]

On February 2, 2014, Josh and his twin sisters Hannah and Beth invite their collective friends (Sam, Mike, Jessica, Emily, Matt, Ashley, and Chris) to the Washington Lodge on Blackwood Mountain for their annual winter getaway.

After the party, some of the group conspire to play a prank on Hannah, who has a crush on Mike despite him already dating Emily. While Josh and Chris are passed out drunk in the kitchen, Mike invites Hannah up to the guest room where, unbeknownst to her, Jessica, Emily, Matt and Ashley are hiding. As Hannah starts taking off her clothes, she becomes aware of the group's presence and feels humiliated. Sam bursts into the room to warn Hannah, but finds out she's too late. Hannah runs out of the lodge and into the snowy woods as everyone follows after her, trying to apologize and convince her to come back. Beth hears the commotion and learning that Hannah has been pranked, she angrily tells the group off and chases after her sister.

Finding her way in the middle of the woods, Beth finally locates a crying Hannah and comforts her. Suddenly, they hear a violent noise and begin to run from an unseen pursuer. As they're cornered at the edge of a cliff, Hannah slips and falls while holding Beth's hand, taking her down with her. Beth manages to hang onto a large branch, holding Hannah with her other hand. An unknown man appears and extends his hand to help the twins, but Hannah and Beth both fall to their apparent deaths, never to be seen again.

Present Day[]

A year later, on the anniversary of Hannah and Beth's disappearance, the remaining seven friends accept Josh's invitation back to the mountain. However, there is immediate tension in the group due to Mike and Emily breaking up and dating Jessica and Matt respectively, which leads to conflict between the girls or the boys. As everyone separates to partake in their own festivities, their seemingly idyllic getaway begins to quickly turn sinister in more ways than one.

Mike and Jessica head to a guest cabin for some alone time when Jessica is kidnapped by an unknown creature. Mike chases after her and finds Jess either dead or alive before she falls deep into the mines. He then follows a mystery man whom he believes killed Jessica to an abandoned Sanatorium, where Mike discovers information about a mining accident in 1952 and experiments performed on the surviving miners.

Ashley, Chris, and Josh use a Ouija board to communicate with spirits and make contact with either of the Washington twins. Convinced that friends are messing with him, Josh storms off. Chris and Ashley investigate the spirit's clue, but are knocked unconscious by a mask-wearing psychopath and Ashley is kidnapped. Chris tracks her down and finds both Ashley and Josh in a Jigsaw-like trap. The psycho forces Chris to choose between saving one of them, though regardless of his action, Josh is violently bisected by the trap.

Matt and Emily leave to look for her lost bag, but decide to return back to the lodge after finding several creepy signs. Learning from Chris and Ashley about the maniac, they travel to the cable car station to get help but discover that the keys are missing. The couple then locates a radio tower and call the mountain rangers for help, who inform them that assistance won't arrive until dawn. An unknown creature causes the structure to collapse by cutting one of its cables, sending it along with Emily and Matt into the mines, with the latter possibly confront and killed by the creature.

Sam takes a bath, but discovers her clothes are missing. Thinking her friends have stolen it, she looks around the lodge for them, only to discover a footage of Josh's death and encounter a psycho. A chase ensues and Sam is either knocked unconscious or escapes into the killer's workshop, where she finds evidences of the psycho's identity. Regardless, Sam reunites with Mike, who escaped the Sanatorium through a network of underground tunnels.

In continuous interludes, a psychiatrist, Dr. Hill, conducts an interview with an unseen figure, asking questions as the narrative progresses. In each interlude, Dr. Hill's office grows more grotesque and dilapidated, reflecting the choices the player makes during each interview interlude. Depending on the former choices of the player, Dr. Hill himself may change in appearance, becoming sickly and maimed. Eventually, he is revealed to simply be a hallucination in the psychopath's mind.

As more sinister events unfold, the psychopath captures Chris and Ashley as they were looking for Sam and gives Chris the choice to sacrifice himself to spare Ashley or shoot her to save himself. The psycho then reveals himself to be Josh, who faked his death and was playing a prank on the group the whole time in retaliation for their prank that indirectly caused his sisters' disappearance the previous year. Mike and Chris capture Josh and leave him tied up in a shed. Meanwhile, Emily is shown wandering through the abandoned mines, where she may find Beth's head and learn that Hannah had actually survived the fall off the cliff. Emily then encounters the Stranger that Mike had followed, who helps her escape from the creature. In her escape, Emily can be killed or manages to get back to the lodge.

The Stranger confronts the main group at the lodge and explains to them that he is a protector of the mountain, which is infested with humanoid creatures called Wendigos, former humans who became monsters by committing cannibalism. The Stranger explains that they will not be able to escape to safety until dawn, which is when the Wendigos cease their hunt, and there are only a few ways to kill Wendigos, such as by fire. Chris and the Stranger decide to rescue Josh, but discover that he has vanished; the Stranger is decapitated by the Wendigo immediately afterwards. Chris either makes it back to the lodge or is killed by the Wendigo. Sam, Mike, Ashley, and the remaining survivors flee to the lodge basement for safety.

Mike returns to the Sanatorium in search of Josh, hoping to find the key to the cable car, but encounters dozens of Wendigos (which the Stranger had imprisoned there), forcing him to destroy the Sanatorium to escape; meanwhile, Sam discovers more information about the Wendigos from the Stranger's notes and follows him. They eventually find Josh in the mines suffering from extreme hallucinations. The trio heads back to the lodge, but Hannah, who is revealed to have turned into a Wendigo after eating Beth's body, recaptures Josh. Depending on the player's choices, Hannah either kills Josh or recognizes and spares him, though drags him back to her lair.

If Matt and Jess are still alive at this point, they have a separate encounter with the Wendigo in the mines and attempt to evade them and reach rescue. Meanwhile, Sam, Mike, and whoever is alive between Ashley, Chris, and Emily, regroup at the lodge only to find it overrun with Wendigos, including Hannah. The creatures, which are now fighting amongst themselves, cause a gas leak; the survivors ignited the gas with an electrical spark. This causes an explosion that destroys the lodge, kills all of the Wendigos (including Hannah), and can result in the deaths of all the remaining survivors, including Mike and/or Sam. Outside, at dawn, rescue helicopters arrive to take the survivors away if any of them survived.

In a post-credits scene, the group conducts interviews at a police station where they explain their story. If Josh has survived it is revealed that he is cannibalizing the Stranger's body, leading him to transform into a Wendigo. If at least one other protagonist survives, two police officers will explore the mines and discover a half-turned Josh, who spots them and seemingly prepares to attack them.

Gameplay[]

Until Dawn is designed to be played multiple times, as players cannot see all content with a single playthrough. Each playthrough will last about seven to nine hours in length, and the game mechanics utilize an in-game system called the "Butterfly Effect", in which any choice of action by the player may cause unforeseen consequences later on. For example, locating a weapon in an earlier chapter may allow the player to pick it up down the line when a chase scene leads back to the same room. Throughout the game, players will make difficult decisions during ethical or moral dilemmas, such as sacrificing one character to save another. The Butterfly Effect system blurs the line between right and wrong decisions and it is possible for players to keep all eight characters alive as well as having all eight of them die, allowing for many different paths and scenarios as well as offering several different endings for each character.

Until Dawn has a strict auto-save system to prevent players from reloading a previous save file to an earlier point in the game if they regret an in-game decision they have made. The only way to change the player's choice is to restart the game from the beginning or continue to the end and start a new game. The developers have stated that Until Dawn has "hundreds of endings." Different endings have different variations depending on the combination of characters alive at the end of the game.

The gameplay is focused on exploration, quick-time events and discovering clues, as well as making decisions. There is an in-game system that will keep track of all of the clues and secrets players have discovered in total, even if there are multiple playthroughs; these clues will allow the player to piece together the mysteries of Blackwood. Regarding the gameplay mechanics and theme, Until Dawn has been noted to be similar to Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls.

A system is added to keep progress of all the secrets you find, which can help you piece things together. The player will take control of each of the eight characters and can make simple choices, which will affect the way the game plays out, resulting in deaths or other mayhem.

See Butterfly Effect, Clues and Totems for more information.

Characters[]

Until Dawn follows eight main protagonists, who visit Blackwood Mountain for an annual winter getaway, and all eight can be controlled. The playable characters are young adults, most of whom humiliated Josh's sister Hannah, causing her and her twin sister, Beth, to run away into the woods a year before, never to be seen again.

Protagonists[]

Supporting Characters[]

Peter Stormare as Dr. Alan Hill
Ella Lentini as Hannah and Beth Washington
Larry Fessenden as The Stranger

Antagonists[]

Development[]

Until Dawn was originally announced for the PlayStation 3 and had the intent of utilizing Sony's PlayStation Move controller. Set in a first-person perspective, the PlayStation Move controlled the player's flashlight, and a torch would be used to switch between the eight playable characters.

The game first appeared at Gamescom 2012, with a trailer and gameplay footage being shown to the public. The gameplay footage focused on Mike and Jessica as they head towards a secluded cabin to have sex and be away from their friends. Soon after they arrive at the cabin, Jessica is dragged out a window by an unidentified assailant and Mike pursues her all the way to a mine shaft, only to discover her dead body on an elevator lift. The footage concluded with Mike about to be attacked by an unknown man.^[3]

With the game unreleased as 2013 came to a close, reports surfaced that Until Dawn was canceled. This was denied by developer Supermassive Games, who stated the game would be out at a later date.

Until Dawn reappeared at Gamescom 2014, where it was revealed the game was now a PlayStation 4 exclusive and took place in a third-person perspective. The DualShock 4's motion sensor replaced the PlayStation Move for controlling the player's flashlight, and the torch feature was dropped for a more traditional level approach, with the characters becoming playable in different parts of the game.^[4] In addition to a new trailer, a demo was presented to the public for the first time, which focused on Ashley and Chris in their attempts to locate their missing friend Sam. This demo ended with the two in a deadly trap and Chris forced to either shoot Ashley or himself to stop the trap.^[5]

Another trailer and demo were released in December 2014. Intended to highlight the game's more action-oriented side (as opposed to the previous demo, which dealt with moral decisions), the demo placed players in the role of Sam during an encounter with the killer. Sam could either die, be knocked out, or escape by the demo's end.^[6]

A fourth trailer was released on Valentine's Day, which paid attention to the romantic relationships between the eight characters.^[7]

On May 26th, 2015, the game's release date was confirmed to be August 25th, 2015. This announcement coincided with a new trailer, which revealed the presence of Dr. Hill, a psychiatrist portrayed by Peter Stormare. It also announced a pre-order bonus which would include a bonus scene between Matt and Emily in the mountains, soon learning that they aren't alone. Multiple additions of the game were confirmed, which will include a standard edition of the game, an extended edition, and a steelbook edition.^[8]

At E3 2015, a demo was shown that followed Emily and Matt while they traveled to the radio tower in hopes of signaling for help. Depending on the choices made, Matt could be knocked off of a cliff or impaled on a fish hook, and Emily would fall off of the radio tower.

On July 13, 2015, Supermassive Games allowed certain video game reviewers to post ten minutes of footage. This footage included a video with showed the prologue of the game, where Beth searched for her sister Hannah after some of the survivors played a prank on her, an updated version of the original video where Jessica and Mike head up to the cabin to have sex, only for Jessica to be captured and possibly killed, and several other nine to ten minute segments of gameplay footage.

Reception[]

Until Dawn received positive reviews from critics. It received an aggregated score of 80.26% on GameRankings based on 54 reviews and 79/100 on Metacritic based on 68 reviews. It was the second best-selling game in the UK in its first week of release, debuting at No. 2 on the UK retail software sales chart, behind Gears of War: Ultimate Edition.

The praise was directed at the visuals, choice mechanic, horror elements, music, voice acting and gameplay design. Most of the criticism the game drew were concerning the story, mostly the second half, camera angles, character movements and a partially linear plot.

The game sold 1.38 million units as of January 2nd, 2016, making it a financial success, surpassing the developer's expectations.

Special Releases[]

Press Kit Edition[]

The Until Dawn Press Kit Edition is a limited edition release of Until Dawn, featuring multiple exclusive collectibles.

Extended Edition[]

The Extended Edition of Until Dawn consists of the original game, with a DLC bonus segment of Matt and Emily in Chapter 2.

Awards and Nominations[]

Date	Ceremony	Category	Recipient(s) and nominee(s)	Result	Ref.
2015	Golden Joystick Awards	PlayStation Game of the Year	Until Dawn	Nominated	^[9]
	Global Game Awards	Best Horror Game		Won	^[10]
	Global Game Awards	Best Original Game		Third	^[10]
	The Game Awards	Best Narrative		Nominated	^[11]
2016	New Statesmen's Top 10 Video Games of 2015	Best Game		Seventh	^[12]
	Hardcore Gamer's Best of 2015	Best Adventure Game		Runner-Up	^[13]
	PlayStation Blog's Best of 2015	Best PS4 Game		Nominated	^[14]^[15]
	PlayStation Blog's Best of 2015	Best Story		Runner-Up	^[14]^[15]
	SXSW Gaming Awards	Excellence in Technical Achievement		Nominated	^[16]^[17]
	National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers	Performance in a Drama Supporting	Brett Dalton as Mike	Nominated	^[18]
	National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers	Use of Sound, New IP	Until Dawn	Nominated	^[18]
	British Academy Games Awards	British Game		Nominated	^[19]
		Game Innovation		Nominated
		Original Property		Won
		Story		Nominated

Trivia[]

Until Dawn was initially going to be a PS3 release with Playstation Move compatibility.
The film posters in the private theater that the killer traps Sam in are all from indie horror films - namely, "The House of the Devil", "Stake Land", "The Innkeepers", "Bitter Feast", "Automatons", and "Hypothermia".
All achievements names are film references. For example, the outcome of one Emily scene will get you either "The Exorcism of Emily" or "Let eM In"; and keeping all four boys alive in one playthrough gets you "The Quicker Man".
The game utilizes a modified and upgraded Killzone: Shadow Fall engine.
In the Japanese version of the game, most of the deaths are censored and are replaced with black screens instead. Additionally, the credits feature the characters' intro screens instead of their death scenes.
Although a behind the scenes video says that the script consists of a thousand pages, the writers have said that Until Dawn actually has a 10,000 page script.^[20]
One of the videos in the behind the scenes content shows that before this game was released, they had people play test the game, but that's not all. They played in the dark and had a special device hooked up to them to detect their fear and their pulse building up to the jumpscare.
Until Dawn is referenced several times in its spiritual successor The Quarry:
- Emma praising Abigail's driving with the phrase “Nice steering, Tex” is a reference to Sam praising Chris's shooting with the phrase “Nice shooting, Tex”.
- Grace's phrase “It was just a prank, Anton” is a reference to Emily's phrase “It was just a prank, Han” .
- Dylan's phrase upon finding the beartrap “something like that can really take your hands off” is a reference to Mike possibly losing his fingers in the beartrap at the Sanatorium.
- Kaitlyn and Dylan's possible dialogue about being isolated at the ski lodge due to a broken cable car is a reference to the overall setting of Blackwood Mountain and the group being trapped on it due to Josh taking the keys to the cable car.
  - Kaitlyn's phrase “when the food runs out, you only got each other” also references the Wendigos and turning into them through cannibalism.
- Grace and Anton mention the Wendigos in one episode of their podcast "Bizarre Yet Bonafide".