So I ended up buying Until Dawn earlier this week and played through it.
I must say, I'm quite impressed with it. It's honestly one of the most simple games in terms of gameplay...but with everything that was put into it, it's quite easily forgiven.
For those who've never heard of it, Until Dawn is essentially a horror game in which you have 8 different characters you can play as throughout the course of the game.
Rather than being a game about hitting or killing things like Silent Hill/Resident Evil, it takes a page from games like Outlast and Silent Hills: Shattered Memories, where you have to rely more on your wits and quick decision skills to even just survive.
In fact, it actually takes a couple of leaves from Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.
Spoiler
One quite obvious one is the sessions with a Psychiatrist in between intervals. However, unlike Shattered Memories, Until Dawn takes it even further and gives it a....quite unique approach as you progress through the game. The questions you get alter certain elements of the game (such as elements that you fear altering things you may see), however, his sessions themselves become quite altered as the game progresses, and among many of the game's twists is one that involves him as well.
The most charming thing about this game beyond the story and elements like that, however, is the fact that it centers around not one, but
eight characters.
Let me put it this way. As I said, this is a horror game that thrives on
survival rather than killing things. You are essentially in the shoes of dictating whether these eight people survive the night. This means that at certain points of the game, you can either help each of these characters survive until the end of the game, kill some of them off, or make sure absolutely
everyone dies. There's absolutely no wrong way to play this game since there are no game overs. This isn't even a game as much as it is an interactive movie at its finest...and you control how the flow of the movie goes including the ending.
What this means...though...is that EVERY playthrough may be different unless you make the exact same choices every time. What this also means is that Until Dawn has over 256 different endings, because no single character is guaranteed to live to the end unless you make it happen
Spoiler
(The exception being two characters, but even then, you can make wrong decisions and make them die near the end).
Another unique factor is that the game gives you tools in the form of "Totems" to see events before they happen. See a totem on the ground with black markings? Pick it up to see your character's death before it happens. Red totem? Pick it up to see upcoming danger for a character. Blue Totem? Pick it up to see another character's death before it happens. Yellow Totem? Pick it up to see a possible solution to a upcoming situation. White totem? Pick it up to see an upcoming instance to where a character may escape a gruesome fate.
But each of those totems (save for the very first in the tutorial) only happen if you make specific decisions, and each of the futures that you see in all 36 (I believe) of those totems could also not happen.
One of my favorites, however, is the Butterfly Effect mechanic in this game, which it prides itself on greatly.
Spoiler
A small example being when one of the characters you control picks up a gun at a target practice area. The game has you do a tutorial on how to aim and shoot at things...but something seemingly small happens (unless, like me, you meticulously looked at the Butterfly Effect screen for the title names of upcoming ones). After you finish shooting the first targets, a squirrel will pop up onto a barrel. You're then given the choice to shoot the squirrel, or shoot another sack-target.
If you choose the latter, then nothing happens. You're given the butterfly effect of "Nature remains in balance," and it affects a certain character later in the game when they're being chased.
If you choose the former, however, then a crow attacks your female friend almost instantly, leaving her with a scratch on her head. Later in the game, the same girl is attacked and, because of that choice, her wound is re-opened and she leaves drops of blood on the floor, so even if she tries to hide she's caught.
And that's just a small example. There are bigger butterfly effects that happen in the game, some being triggered by other butterfly effects you enact, some triggering no matter what choice you make but offering completely different outcomes.
And some of those butterfly effects may cost you a character if you make the wrong choice.
And likewise, the game punishes you for making wrong choices such as being safe versus being quick. It could cost you another character's life, for example.
Something people might be deterred by is that it's a 9 hour long game at most. However, as I just got done saying that A) There's at least 256 endings and B) No playthrough at the same....one thing I think it does quite well with is replayability...both for getting all totems and files, and for seeing many of the different endings and accomplishing either saving EVERY character, or killing each of them (which when you finish the game once, you can do each chapter/episode on its own if you don't want to play through the entire thing again, and what you do will still affect the ending).
