Until Dawn

Until Dawn is an interactive drama survival horror video game. It was originally supposed to be released for the PlayStation 3 and support PlayStation Move, but in August 2014 the game was relaunched as a PlayStation 4 exclusive title. Until Dawn is designed to be played multiple times, as players will miss out on quite a bit of content with a single playthrough. Each playthrough lasts about nine hours, and the game's mechanics use a new system called the "butterfly effect," where every decision the player makes can have unforeseen consequences. For example, if you find a weapon in an earlier chapter, you can pick it up later when a chase leads back to the same room. Throughout the game, players will make difficult decisions when faced with ethical or moral dilemmas, such as sacrificing one character to save another. The Butterfly Effect system blurs the line between right and wrong decisions, and it is possible to let all eight characters live or let all eight die, allowing for many different paths and scenarios, as well as several different endings. Until Dawn has a strict auto-save system that prevents players from reloading a previous save file to an earlier point in the game if they regret a decision made in the game. The only way to change the player's decision is to restart the game from the beginning or continue to the end and start a new game. In a developer interview, it was said that Until Dawn has "hundreds of endings." The different endings have different variations, depending on which combination of characters is still alive at the end of the game. The gameplay focuses on exploration, quick-time events and discovering clues, as well as making decisions. There is a system in the game that records all of the clues and secrets that players have discovered in total, even if they play through the game multiple times. In terms of game mechanics and theme, Until Dawn is similar to the games Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls. Until Dawn was received positively by critics upon its release. The graphics, the decision-making mechanics, the horror elements, the music, the voice output and the gameplay design were especially praised. Most of the criticism was related to the story, especially the second half, the camera angles, the characters' movements and the game's partially linear plot.