Review of the game Until Dawn: quiet in the forest, everyone is asleep, only the maniac is not sleeping

There is such a popular horror film genre as “slasher” (from the English. “Slash” - hack). The main feature of this genre is the presence of several main characters in it, as well as a psychopathic killer who systematically and consistently pursues them and brutally kills one after another. This genre is popularly called “counting the bodies of dead adolescents,” since attractive, but not always smart, young people are often the victims of a maniac. The game Until Dawn (“live until dawn” - the Russian version of the name) is a vivid example of the transfer of this popular cinema genre to the Sony PlayStation 4 console.

It cannot be said that before there were no attempts to adapt youth horror films to the game controller and console format. In my memory, such projects have already been. The classic horror Clock Tower (1995) immediately comes to mind, the main character of which was forced to flee from a maniac and hide in various places. Or the ObsCure game (2004), in which five schoolchildren were locked up in a school, where someone opened a hunt for them. There are many examples of slashers in the history of the gaming industry. But the game Until Dawn for the first time so painstakingly embodied all the smallest features of this genre in an interactive form of entertainment.

Developed Until Dawn within the walls of the British studio Supermassive Games, which was previously notable, except for a couple of children's projects for PlayStation Move motion controllers, was not noted in the gaming industry. Youth horror was also originally developed for Sony's motion controllers, and it was planned to be released for the PS3 console. But then the leadership of the Japanese corporation refused this undertaking. It was decided to port the project to a new PlayStation 4 console, endowing it with a more familiar control scheme. However, because of this decision, the development of the game took two years more than originally planned.

In the center of the plot is a group of ten teenagers who rest in a country house owned by the parents of three of them - the two sisters Hannah and Beth and their brother Josh. The tipsy company decides to cruelly joke one of the sisters, taking the rally for the camera and putting it all on the Web. The girl, burning with shame, runs away from the house and dissolves in a snow blizzard. Her sister rushes after her. From that day no one else saw them. The police officially declared the girls dead, because in such a cold without warm clothes no one could survive. The bodies of the sisters at the same time were not found.

Exactly one year passes, and Josh again invites last year’s company to his home. He wants them all together to honor the memory of his beloved sisters, and just could again see each other and talk freely. The participants of last year’s party could not refuse a friend, so they come to the place of the tragic events with a heavy heart. But here they are not waiting for a friendly conversation over a cup of hot chocolate by the fireplace, but a series of mysterious and even horrible incidents, as a result of which far from all will be able to survive.

The main characters until Dawn, as in the selection, personify the classic characters of the average youth horror. Here you and the class president are a beautiful sporty young man named Mike, who meets with Jessica, the most attractive girl in their company. What kind of horror movie would be without an unbearable bitch that you want to push into the arms of some kind of maniac killer? The center bitch of the game is called Emily, and she meets a dark-skinned athlete Matt, who is not very smart, and therefore allows her to sit on his neck. Not without the guy-geek Chris and the girl-nerd Ashley. And, of course, the main character of the game Sam is the soul of the whole company. She is kind, open-minded and always tries to do the right thing so as not to offend anyone. The owner of the mountain estate Josh is trying hard to be a hospitable host for his friends. So I listed to you the eight main characters of the game, in the role of each of which you have to get used to at one time or another.

Here we should mention the actors who play the main characters. After all, they are very well-known personalities in the world of cinema and television series. Sam plays Hayden Panettiere, familiar to the audience thanks to the role of the immortal cheerleader in the TV series “Heroes” (by the way, Hayden also has five minutes to the spouse of boxer Wladimir Klitschko). Josh is played by actor Rami Malek, who currently plays the main role in the television series “Mr. Robot”. In the role of Mike, the actor Brett Dalton, who played a major role in the television series "Agents of Sh.I.T." Also in the game you can meet a psychiatrist, whose role is played by the famous actor Peter Stormare. He was remembered by many viewers as “italian” from the TV series “Escape”. In other words, the cast of the game is more than worthy for such a niche and unusual project. The guys are playing really well. This is noticeable because their facial expressions were brought into the game with the help of special cameras attached to their faces. This technique was used by James Cameron in his film Avatar.

Gameplay Until Dawn is a bit like the game of the French studio Quantic Dream. It is replete with numerous QTEs, since initially the game was sharpened by PlayStation Move controllers. Fortunately, in the settings, the developers allowed us to choose the most suitable control method for us: using analog handles or using tilts and turns of the DualShock 4 gamepad in space. You can freely move characters to locations, but don’t even expect to find the “Run” button - it’s not here. The characters have only two movement speeds: walk slowly and walk a little faster. They run only in exceptional cases when they are in mortal danger.

The interaction of characters with objects occurs in several ways. You can pick up the object and turn it in your hands, since there may be important notes for further developments on the back of any document. Also, the game uses the touchpad DualShock 4. For example, when you need to strike a match in a box or unlock a smartphone, you will need to slide your finger from left to right on the touchpad. This, I tell you, even a little, but adds realism to the game. And I was very pleased with the moments when the killer psychopath chases after any of the heroes, he hides from him, and so that the maniac doesn’t hear and notice his victim, you need to sit completely still. The accelerometer and the gyroscope are built into the PS4 game controller, so that the slightest movement of yours will reveal the location of the character, and the killer will immediately detect it.

The entire plot until Until Dawn, divided into ten chapters, is tied to the decisions that the player takes in the process of passing. The developers wrote a script with a volume of more than 1000 pages, so that every fork in the game really leads to the fact that in the future something will go in a completely different direction. Each dialogue between the characters varies depending on what you said or did before. In general, the concept of the "butterfly effect" in Until Dawn is implemented so great that you just wonder. A mistake or a discovery that you made a couple of chapters back may turn into a bloody tragedy or a happy ending when you have completely forgotten about it. For example, one day you may notice that there is a baseball bat in the corner. In the next chapter, your character will be able to use it to fight off the killer. But if you have not noticed a bit before - your fate will be sad. From this you come to a complete delight: the game takes into account absolutely everything, does not forgive anything and does not forget.

In the game, you can (and even need to!) Search for various clues that will help you figure out what is happening at all, as well as find answers to many mysteries of the past. I like these detective moments very much, so I found absolutely all the clues in the game and revealed all the plot twists and turns as carefully as possible. In addition to evidence, the game also needs to look for pieces of wooden Indian totems, each of which will allow you for a split second to look into the future of one of the characters. Totems will allow you to avoid making wrong decisions in the future and even save one or more characters from seemingly inevitable death, so listen carefully to their advice.

To fully reveal all the faces until Dawn you have to go through the game several times. And every time she is quite able to present you with new surprises and completely unexpected plot twists. The endings of the game, as you already understood, are not two and not three, but more than a hundred. True, they differ mainly in different dialogues of surviving characters. I would like more plot development after the final credits, but in this respect the game doesn’t really indulge. On the other hand, maybe it is for the best that everything ends this way? Still, the screenwriter and director of the game know better.

If you think that in case of a failed decision, you can simply load the record and change the course of events - I hasten to disappoint you. The developers have foreseen this and have built in the game automatic recording of progress. There is only one slot for recording in the game. So if you want to change something in the previous chapter, please start the whole game from the very beginning. But there is also a joyful moment: after you complete the game for the first time, you will have the opportunity to replay it, starting with any of the ten story chapters. This makes the repetition much more pleasant and easier, since you can simply wind off the time until you made a fatal mistake.

Until Dawn uses old time-tested and youthful screamers to intimidate players. These are moments when someone or something suddenly jumps at you from around the corner. The process is accompanied by a loud sound, so that the human nervous system immediately rears up like a frightened cat. There is no psychological suspense, as in the Silent Hill series, but do not forget that these are still completely different subgenres of horror. At some points in the game you will have to talk with a psychiatrist, who will offer you to undergo a series of tests to identify your subconscious fears. The test results will allow the game to further use your fears against you.

Game developers specifically conducted a test on the control group, consisting of gamers of different ages and sexes. Biometric bracelets that read various vital signs were put on their hands, after which participants were given a game controller, turned on the game Until Dawn on the PS4 console, turned off the lights in the room and left them alone. At the same time, of course, they were filmed by a night vision camera. The creators of the game paid attention to which moments of the game seem to the players especially scary, and which ones should be modified a little more. That’s how the game turned out to be as balanced and devoid of plot drawdowns.

The game skillfully manipulates various patterns and fragments from the cult horror films, while bringing something from them into them. Every now and then you note to yourself that the developers borrowed from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, this was taken from Stanley Kubrick from The Shine, and here is a direct reference to the Saws series of Saw. Every camera angle, every plot twist, every visual effect, every death of a character in the game is a kind of tribute to the horror genre and the subgenre slasher in particular. For connoisseurs of horror films, this game is required to purchase without any doubt. By the way, on the disc with the game you can also find a documentary about its development - a very nice addition.

Pros:

• Powerful plot with a lot of unexpected turns.
• Great visual style and great graphics.
• The game has absorbed the best elements of the slasher genre.
• High-quality soundtrack and work with sound.
• There is a choice of the original language of voice acting.
• Your every decision triggers a “butterfly effect”.
• Huge variability of events.
• A large number of game endings.
• Very simple and intuitive management.
• Fascinating process of finding and collecting evidence.
• I want to go through the game several times.
• A documentary about the development of the game.

Minuses:

• Developers could make the game finishes deeper.
• There are errors in the Russian text localization.
• The game does not like those who can not stand the QTE.

My feelings after the passage of Until Dawn were close to total delight. The game is almost devoid of serious shortcomings, but at the same time offers us a gorgeous story, which not every player can foresee the outcome of which. It seems that everything starts as a banal teen slasher, but in fact we have a much more ornate and deep story. Until Dawn is another great exclusive for the Sony PlayStation 4 console, and if you like horror games, then I highly recommend you spend a couple of evenings on it. My score game: 9 points out of 10 .

The article is based on materials https://hi-news.ru/games/obzor-igry-until-dawn-tixo-v-lesu-vse-spyat-tolko-ne-spit-manyak.html.