Until Dawn

Until Dawn is an interactive drama-survival-horror video game. It was originally planned as a first-person game for the PlayStation 3's motion controller PlayStation Move, but motion control was later dropped when it became a PlayStation 4 exclusive. Until Dawn is designed to be played multiple times, as players will miss out on a whole lot of content in a single playthrough. The game 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 keep all eight characters alive or have all eight die, allowing for many different paths and scenarios as well as 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 they made in the game. The only way to change the player's decision is to restart the game from the beginning or continue playing 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 keeps track of all 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 Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls. Until Dawn was well received by critics on its release. The graphics, the decision-making mechanics, the horror elements, the music, the voice acting and the gameplay were particularly praised. Most of the criticism related to the story, especially the second half, the camera angles, the characters' movements and the game's partially linear plot.