Until Dawn is scheduled for release in 2015. Originally Until Dawn was being built as a PlayStation Move project for the PS3, but has been completely re-invented for the PS4. The majority of fans wanted to play on a controller, so Move Controller support has been removed. The developer was quoted as saying: “We re-designed, re-built and re-wrote the game so now you have a more mature, darker and fundamentally more terrifying experience on PS4.”
Until Dawn has been announced as one of the first videogames in modern history to tackle the “Slasher” horror film genre in videogame form. Not since Manhunt have we seen this kind of violence.
Check out the Until Dawn CGI PS4 debut trailer.
Until Dawn is being developed by Supermassive Games. The relatively new developer (founded in 2008) has not done anything worthy of note until this… But boy do they look like they’ve turned things around.
Here’s the Until Dawn image gallery.
Click on any of these image thumbnails to see the full-size photos:
Until Dawn is a third-person psychological horror game, where every decision you make determines whether your friends live or die… all while being trapped in a “Cabin in the Woods”-style slasher film setup.
Synopsis
When eight friends are trapped on a remote mountain retreat and things quickly turn sinister, they start to suspect they aren’t alone.
Gripped by fear and with tensions in the group running high, you’ll be forced to make snap decisions that could mean life, or death, for everyone involved.
Every choice you make in your terrifying search for answers – even the seemingly trivial ones – will carve out your own unique story.
With spine-tingling performances from a Hollywood cast including Hayden Panettiere (Heroes, Nashville) brought to life with the power of PlayStation 4 – your actions alone will decide who survives Until Dawn.
In an unpredictable and dynamically adaptive story, crafted in consultation with Until Dawn scriptwriters and indie horror auteurs Larry Fessenden and Graham Reznick, eight friends come together at a remote mountain getaway and embark upon a night of unexpected terror.
Through the course of the night, anyone can live, anyone can die, and things aren’t always what they seem. Twists and turns will keep you guessing right to the end as you play each of the friends. The decisions you make on their behalf will determine who survives Until Dawn.
With innovative choice mechanics and the Butterfly-Effect Interface, players can clearly see the path of their story amid the thousands that are possible. Seemingly insignificant choices as well as huge moral dilemmas that will question your sense of fairness, good and evil, can have major unforeseen consequences.
Using the power of the PlayStation 4 and the superior rendering capability of the Killzone: Shadow Fall Engine, together with our own major enhancements in lighting, camera, and animation systems, Until Dawn brings emotional and credible performances of a talented Hollywood cast to life in its realistically terrifying environments.
Check out this gameplay footage from Until Dawn!
Absolutely awesome premise, eh.
Other actors involved include Rami Malek (The War At Home, The Pacific, Night at the Museum, Twilight: Breaking Dawn) and Brett Dalton (Agent Grant Ward in ABC’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., National Geographic’s Killing Lincoln based on the Bill O’Reilly book).
The developers were previously focused on the PS Move and supporting Sony’s failed Wonderbook platform, having developed the games “Start the Party!”, “Tumble”, Start the Party! Save the World”, “Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock” and the Wonderbook title “Walking With Dinosaurs”. Although they also developed LittleBigPlanet PSP & Killzone 1 HD for PS3. But it seems like all of that was just to pay the bills as they slowly climbed up the Sony ladder… now the developers are crafting something they can really be proud of.
RANT INCOMING…
I’m not a fan of horror when it involves killing humans in gruesome ways (which is almost all horror), but the worst of the bunch are slashers, films I’ve refused to watch. However, I am a big fan of jump scares, and psychological horror, the type seen in videogames from Resident Evil to Silent Hill to Fatal Frame to Alan Wake (love these kind of games!). Those games don’t so much rely on gore, even though it exists.
My biggest problem has always been with movies, which actually involve real actors and are much more realistic. What has always bothered me the most is seeing, and in particular hearing, the screams of a girl as she’s being butchered. I’ve never understood where the entertainment value is in that.
In any case, Until Dawn looks extremely well done and extremely, extremely terrifying. This is the type of game that could be the videogame industry’s modern-console equivalent to Wes Craven’s Scream series, or say, the Saw series. In other words, we haven’t had a huge horror franchise that has been able to duplicate that kind of slasher film quality.
And, in particular, we’ve never had a game that seeks to attain such high levels of realism and detail before… It was done with games like Heavy Rain, Murdered: Soul Suspect and The Evil Within… but never with the next-gen power of the PS4.
Until Dawn kind of sounds like they are going for a Heavy Rain or Beyond: Two Souls gameplay system… More of a slower-paced Adventure as you can see in the gameplay video above. I definitely like that feel, and that’s how I prefer my games to be.
So I’m totally excited, even though the voice acting seems to leave a bit to be desired. Which always seem to be the case when you hire Hollywood ACTORS instead of Hollywood VOICE-ACTORS. But time will tell. I’m definitely intrigued and keeping my eye on this one.
Either way, Until Dawn is another huge title for Sony that came from completely out of left-field. And another potential AAA blockbuster in the PS4’s camp.
And Until Dawn has a very cool name in my humble opinion.
What do you think of Until Dawn?