Sony’s seminal interactive horror movie is remade for the PS5, but the end result is not necessarily the definitive edition.
Given how many there have been recently, it’s easy to become cynical about remakes and assume they’re all creatively bankrupt cash grabs, but that’s clearly not true. The likes of Resident Evil 4 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth have been amongst the best games of the generation, even though the original versions were also classics. And despite all the, understandable, pessimism this month’s Silent Hill 2 has turned out to be a triumph.
Theoretically, the best use for remakes (and this goes for movies too) is for something that didn’t quite reach its full potential the first time round, but because that also means it probably wasn’t as popular as an all-time classic that rarely happens. Until Dawn doesn’t really fit either description though as while it’s not really a classic it did everything it set out to and helped original developer Supermassive Games establish a whole sub-genre of horror-themed interactive movies.
We felt the original was flawed, especially in terms of being a horror game without much horror, but unlike most interactive movies we enjoyed the ride for what it was worth. What it’s absolutely not worth is a full-scale remake. But that’s what this is. It’s not a remaster, it’s a complete new game, created from scratch but with, supposedly, better graphics – despite the fact the original is only nine years old and, as a PlayStation 4 title, already works perfectly fine on the PlayStation 5.
This is not the first time Sony has done something like this. They also recently remade The Last Of Us Part 1, despite the PlayStation 4 remaster looking perfectly fine and Naughty Dog surely having better things to do with their time. At least in that case there was some sort of excuse, in that Sony wanted the game to look its best and work as a tie-in to the TV show, but it was still a waste of everyone’s time and money.
It’s difficult to fathom exactly why Until Dawn has been given the same treatment but it may be for essentially the same reason, since an Until Dawn movie is being made at the moment. The obvious difference there is that Sony already knew The Last Of Us show was a hit but who knows how well an Until Dawn movie will do.
Whatever the reasoning, the remake gets some new endings, which clearly point at plans for a sequel, so we guess it’s better late than never for fans that wanted more of the franchise. Although Sony seems to have long ago had a falling out with Supermassive Games, so we don’t expect them to be involved in any future games – just as they weren’t with this remake.
Although it’s impossible to describe Until Dawn without making reference to the various low budget 80s horror movies that inspired it, this is not really a survival horror game. There’s very little gore (or nudity, unlike its inspirations) and at very few points does it even try to be scary, instead settling for a more audience-friendly mild spookiness.
As lame as that sounds the game is a difficult one to dislike, even though there’s also no real action. Part of that is down to the cast, which includes Hayden Panettiere from Heroes and Scream and a pre-fame Rami Malek, all of who are gamely giving it their all with the sometimes workmanlike dialogue. (The cast of the movie is completely different, except for Peter Stormare.)
The other great appeal is the central premise, that while you’re controlling your character directly, and there’s the odd QTE sequence, all the most important interactions are on-screen decisions, usually only with two or three options. At least towards the end of the game, these can easily result in the death of a character if you pick the wrong option.
Right from the start, the game plays up the idea of the butterfly effect, where seemingly minor decisions can lead to life-changing events later on. This works in general, but the system has been refined and improved in Supermassive’s later games; not so much in spiritual sequel The Quarry but certainly the better entries in The Dark Pictures Anthology. In Until Dawn there’s still a lot of decisions that leads to catastrophe, where you don’t feel you had any chance of anticipating it.
That may be authentic to 80s horror movies but it’s not very satisfying as a gameplay mechanic, with the game weakly trying to compensate with collectible totems that give you a glimpse of a possible feature (a process that is considerably more fiddly and time consuming than it was in the original).
The remake makes little effort to smooth over some of these rough edges, although it’s difficult to be sure exactly how much has changed from the original, given how often the story branches in different directions. By our estimation the majority is the same and so the biggest change to the game is the graphics which… almost seem to have got worse.
On a technical level they’re definitely better, since this uses Unreal Engine 5, with much more realistic lighting and realistically deforming snow. But while the opening couple of chapters now actually look like sunset, as the plot claims it is, the golden hue given to everything is unquestionably less atmospheric than the bleak horror atmosphere of the original.
It’s also a strange decision to remove the fixed camera angles of the original. You can see why Konami did it with Silent Hill 2 but here it just ends up making the game feel less cinematic, despite that being the main thing it’s supposed to be aiming for. You don’t even get the full benefit of avoiding the changes in controller direction, when the camera angle switches, since the characters control in such a weirdly sluggish manner anyway – plus, you cannot run anymore, except at specific story moments.
The biggest problem with the new graphics is the terrible performance. The game runs at only 30fps, but the original, when played on PlayStation 5, runs at 60fps. More importantly, the remake’s frame rate is widely inconsistent, and we had it crash on us more than once. That’ll probably be fixed with a patch but the remake had one job and it didn’t get even that right.
In our review of the original Until Dawn, we characterised it as a ‘bad idea done well’ and that still seems about right to us, except now the execution is somehow worse. The co-op mode, where you pass the controller around like a party game is still fun but, again, that’s now done better in Supermassive’s other games.
There is absolutely zero reason to play the remake of Until Dawn and that’s not getting into the fact that it’s a full price game with no upgrade option if you have the original. It’s a remake that nobody asked for and is clearly entirely unnecessary given how good the PlayStation 4 version still looks. It’s a pretty horrifying prospect even for those that loved the original, which remains the definitive version.
Until Dawn PS5 review summary
In Short: A bafflingly pointless remake, that absolutely no one asked for, and which manages to introduce a number of new flaws while completely failing to justify its own existence.
Pros: The original remains one of the most entertaining interactive movies of all time, with a good cast and some fun decision-making quandaries. Co-op mode is particularly enjoyable.
Cons: Possibly the most unnecessary remake of all time, that does nothing to improve the original but makes several things worse, including the controls, camera, and janky graphics.
Score: 5/10
Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed) and PC
Price: £59.99
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Developer: Ballistic Moon
Release Date: 4th October 2024
Age Rating: 18
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