Until Dawn review

The PS4 version of Until Dawn was one of the most original horror titles on console. While we’ve seen many movies featuring unknowing teenagers getting picked off one by one in brutal fashion, we were never the ones responsible for each and every life, making decisions that could see them meet their grisly end. Ballistic Moon has rebuilt the original in Unreal Engine 5, and while it does a few things to make it feel different nine years later, it is still the same tense story, albeit much more impressive when it comes to the visuals.

Starting off in a cabin in the woods (with a brand new prologue), you’re introduced to a group of teenagers ticking off every stereotype in the books. A true testament to me growing up (or getting older) is realising how obnoxious and annoying most of these kids are, and while my goal is to try and keep them all alive, I wasn’t particularly disappointed when one of them died. The story is filled with twists and turns, and depending on choices there are parts of the game you might miss completely, with multiple replays necessary to see every element of it.

While the story does follow almost the same path, there are some tweaks here and there, including new endings that tease the future of the series. It was interesting to see these new scenes unfold, but I wouldn’t say it’s worth buying just for this reason. The original still holds up almost a decade on, making it hard to recommend this over the 2015 release. That’s not to say there are some changes that do make this much more impressive, specifically how good it looks.

The character animations are impressive, with facial expressions and movement almost lifelike. The lighting has been improved drastically, leading you to forget this isn’t some brochure for a snowy getaway in a gorgeous mountainous region as opposed to a brutal slasher. In order to truly appreciate the visuals, a new over-the-shoulder camera angle allows you to explore the environments more. The rotating camera means everywhere can be explored, although there’s not a ton of interactive elements to Until Dawn, it’s a nice touch getting to move around more freely.

Some of the character movement is clunky, and when you are moving about freely, it’s like the drunk state of some of the characters have been manifested in the controls. As you do walk around, Totems can be found throughout Until Dawn, and when you pick one up it can be moved around in order to find a fleck of light that dives into a potential outcome for a future moment in the story showing a character’s death.

While it can be distracting listening to the teens, the moments of horror are generally fascinating to watch unfold. Having to hold the controller still at certain times adds a layer of fear, and failing the quick-time events can have huge ramifications if you make a mistake with them. While it has some improvements to the original, it still has those exciting and terrifying sections that hold up beautifully now. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll still get just as much from the original, but all of the tweaks from Ballistic Moon help to enrich that experience for modern consoles.

Until Dawn on PS5 is an improvement as far as the visuals go, and the camera angle helps to immerse you in a new way despite the controls feeling less responsive as they should. The ability to move faster wouldn’t go amiss either. While the majority of the characters do little to warm to you, there are some excellent performances, especially the incredibly talented Rami Malik leading the charge. If you never played this the first time round, it’s hard not to recommend this remake, but you’ll still get a lot out of playing Supermassive’s classic original title from 2015 as well.