Until Dawn

How a schlocky teen horror confounded everyone’s expectations

- Chris Schilling

Until Dawn makes you wait a while before it springs its first big surprise. A masked psychopath has bound the bookish Ashley and the creepy Josh into a Saw-like deathtrap; as affable nerd Chris, you’re forced to pick which one to save. Girlfriend or best friend? In any event, your choice doesn’t seem to matter: the buzzsaw blade automatically heads towards Josh regardless, cutting him in two at the waist. It’s the moment at which Until Dawn makes good on its promise that no one is safe – not least since the victim, played by Mr Robot star Rami Malek, is one of the cast’s biggest names – and reminds you that choices don’t always have the expected consequences. It’s also, as it turns out, a total fake-out, the first shock of many in a game that rarely plays by the rulebook.

Then again, for a while, Until Dawn seemed to confound its makers, too. Initially planned as a comparatively limited, motion controlled, first person horror game for PS3, things soon changed after its developer, Supermassive Games, took a demo build to Gamescom in 2012. An unexpectedly warm reception forced the studio to sit down with Sony and discuss making a Move-required title into something everyone could play, before development shifted to PS4. If on occasion the finished game bears the scars of its difficult birth, abandoning Move certainly paid off. Indeed, Supermassive knew it was on the right track when, two years later at Sony’s PlayStation Experience showcase, an onstage demo saw a rowdy audience participating in each decision.