Until Dawn Review - So many twists!

I actually do not want to review this because I feel like anything I will say will be a spoiler for people who have not played it yet. I am going to keep it short and as spoiler free as I can. My message to you: play this game. There is nothing I didn't like about this game, or should I say, experience. This is a totally new and original way of doing storytelling in a video game. Of course, this cinematic, quick time events, choice driven gameplay has been done before. Heavy Rain comes to mind as one of the most relevant comparison here. They also both have a two word name.

Anyway, let's start with the cast. More and more games try to include first class actors in their projects (Kiefer Sutherland, Peter Dinklage, Ellen Page...) but rarely have I seen that good of an ensemble cast in a video game. The precise motion capture definitely helped carry through little details like gimmicks and facial expressions. Watching Hayden Panettiere act out Sam's character in the gondola was pretty impressive. The voice over was extraordinary with Brett Dalton being totally in his element, as was Rami Malek.

To be fair, the writing was also stunning and helped make the characters believable and relatable. I usually like to play as one character but because of the intricate story and characters' development, I didn't mind switching back and forth. Mike was probably my favorite character as he can make friends with a little wolf, that was clearly my favorite part of the game. Sony has promoted this game as a "butterfly effect", choice driven game and it truly was. I loved the fact that when making a critical decision, it does tell you that what you just did affected the story. The latter is very cool, especially for a supernatural fan like me. There are twists and turns and shockers and I was never disappointed with the outcome of each little chapter. The publisher and developer did a stunning job at hiding what the story is actually about and only showed us what they wanted us to see. I was truly impressed by that. Until Dawn is obviously a horror story though and I was shitting myself playing it. It was really scary and creepy and all that you want from the genre. I spent about 7 hours on it and I can't wait to replay it and hopefully save more people, but most of all, save the wolf!

By the way, working for Redbox, I can tell you that we exclusively have the prop masks from the game and we are giving them away on Instagram at the end of October! They're super cool for anybody who loved the game:
https://instagram.com/redbox/?hl=en