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Until Dawn Remake

Until Dawn Remake

Ballistic Moon has given Supermassive's best project yet a fresh coat of paint, but does that make this remake a must-buy?

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So here's the thing about this Until Dawn Remake: fundamentally, I don't get the point of it. The original debuted back in 2015 and since it's a Supermassive project that revolves around a narrative-heavy horror story, the gameplay, visuals, and performance all hold up and work well today. This isn't a title from the early 2000s that looks massively dated compared to modern alternatives, this is a game that works well and is easily accessible, and yet for some reason has been remade. The fan in me loathes that this has happened because this means resources and time has been spent creating a project that no one really asked for or needed, but here we are and brushing that aside, how does Until Dawn's remake actually shape up?

HQ

Unsurprisingly, at least on PS5, pretty well. Developer Ballistic Moon has taken arguably Supermassive's best story and rebuilt it from the ground up on Unreal Engine 5. This means that the door has been opened to really stunning and striking graphics that are bolstered and supported by immersive and much more detailed cinematic efforts and design elements, all to make Until Dawn a really encapsulating experience. The visuals are more real, vibrant, and detailed than ever before, the environment and level design has depth that was never there prior, the camera angle has been adjusted so that it presents a wider viewing angle, the lighting has massively improved to make shadows more accurate and the darker areas even more haunting and claustrophobic, and the soundscape has been tweaked to be even richer, making the Wendigo screams in particular all the more frightening.

Whether you're crawling through abandoned mine shafts as Emily or running through a dilapidated mental asylum as Mike, trudging through snow as Matt or enjoying a hot bath as Sam, this enhanced version of Until Dawn has complexities and depth that make it feel even closer to a movie than it ever has before. The facial and character movement animations are more emotive, the quick-time events less frustrating, the usage of camera angles and different aspect ratios add to the cinematographic flair, and this is all on top of actual new content too, such as reworked narrative elements and reframed scenes in an attempt to up the fear factor and elevate the emotional complexity of the game. If it wasn't for the game being locked at 30fps and still seeing the occasional frame dip, this take on Until Dawn would be a very high quality remake in a performance sense.

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One area that does leave me a little less impressed however is how despite being a fully-fledged remake Ballistic Moon seemingly still hasn't cracked the movement dilemma that Until Dawn faced and that Supermassive games in general struggle with. There are frequent occasions where you feel as though you're fighting the movement and control scheme to get the characters to do basic things, and this is particularly noticeable when wandering around the lodge's tight corridors. Adding to this is an adjusted "Don't Move" mechanic that attempts to take full advantage of the DualSense's motion elements but can fail and die on its sword if you will, due to the haptic abilities of the controller often causing this to cannibalise itself and register movement when you are physically not moving. Granted, this latter issue is minor and can be circumvented by switching back to the analogue stick format for the mechanic if you so desire.

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When you look at it as a standalone game, the Until Dawn Remake has a lot going for it. Its 4K graphics and improved lighting, seamless scene-to-gameplay action thanks to the PS5's SSD, the usage of the DualSense's full immersive suite of features, the enhanced audio profile, the tweaked camera angle, and the reworked scenes all make this a quality horror experience and reaffirm Until Dawn as Supermassive's best project so far. However, the original game isn't far behind in many of these metrics. The improvements don't make this a must buy and the original a relic to be avoided at all costs, as frankly Until Dawn is simply not a game that ever felt like it required a fully-fledged remake... yet.

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If you have the original in your library and could have simply thrown a spare £10 at this upgrade, there would be a lot to love, but without that being available and if you're choosing between the 2015 original and this one, don't be fooled into thinking that the new £60 price tag is worth every penny - this is still very much a title you can find online and in many gaming stores for a quarter of that price and enjoy without any issues.

Until Dawn Remake

Update (8/10/2024): Adjusted mention of PS5 upgrade path.

08 Gamereactor UK
8 / 10
+
Amazing visuals and graphics. Excellent soundscape. Improved facial and movement animations. Flows better than the original. Beautiful cinematographic presentation. Same entertaining story.
-
Character movement can be frustrating. Choppy frame rate at times. DualSense features can occasionally be a problem.
overall score
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REVIEW. Written by Ben Lyons

Ballistic Moon has given Supermassive's best project yet a fresh coat of paint, but does that make this remake a must-buy?



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