Until Dawn - Part 2
12015's Until Dawn was fantastic. Supermassive's interactive horror movie paid tribute to films like I Know What You Did Last Summer, Saw, and The Descent as you take control of 8 friends who gather at a lodge in the mountains on the anniversary of a tragedy that happened a year earlier. All the ingredients of a popcorn slasher are there... cliches, jump scares, cheesiness, suspense, drama, tension, twists all make it super enjoyable - and the branching story based on choices that you make, with almost every single decision you make carrying consequences ranging from trivial to extreme. This also gives the game some replayability, and at about 6 hours running time it's not overlong or too short.
Nine years later, it's easy to see why it was decided to bring Until Dawn into the modern age with the Unreal 5 engine, and for the most part it's great. The textures are incredible in some areas - with sunsets, snow and the character models (and their actors, Remi Malek, Peter Stormare and Hayden Panettiere) themselves looking gorgeous in most parts. Unfortuanately, this causes some horrible framerate issues in some places that seems yet to be patched. Instead of fixed-panning cameras from the original, this new offering has a more over-the-shoulder design with running removed unless the story deems it necessary. I'm not sure if this is deliberate to help tension but I'd imagine replaying may be affected as you can't zoom through for multiple endings. Haptic feedback is also great, ramping the tension - though Don't Move sequences don't seem to fully match up with where you're holding the pad. The big question though, is the RRP justified? No. Even with new scenes and interactive objects, This game should have released at half the price it did.
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