During my time spent with Until Dawn it slowly… dawned… on me I was not in for a good time. The game is plauged by a bad control scheme, an abhorrent frame rate and a plot that rocketed out the gate as entirely nonsensical. I decided early on that any fun to be had was to be from my own flexes of the imagination. So where Until Dawn tried and failed at being a horror movie, I would come down off the medication so my brain could perform the mental gymnastics possible to make this a compelling splatfest thriller.
This is the Terrible Tuesday where I try and help Until Dawn achieve horror movie status.
The Challenge: Progress through the game as though I dug around a bargain bin in Best Buy and found a Three for Five horror deal instead of paying $60 for a Playstation 4 exclusive.
The Goal: The entire cast dies. All but Sam, played by Hayden “Save the Cheerleader, Save the World” Panettiere. Not because I particularly liked her, but because she was the FDG. Fated White Girl. Survivor of any Horror. Symbol of Cult Status. Savior of Blood Soaked Teens. Everyone else bites it, but only on my terms and on my time. Let’s see how I fared.
The Hit List
Until Dawn starts out with a plot that’s completely nonsensical even by paper thin and obtuse horror plot writing standards. A group of friends at a cabin in the woods plays a prank to embarrass the shit out of one of their other friends because ‘reasons.’ They try and absolve themselves with the legal loophole “it’s a prank”, but she runs off into the woods in a complete hysteric panic that defies human behavior anyway, again because reasons. Her sister goes after her, and both ladies end up tumbling off a cliff and dying. One year later the brother of these two sisters holds a reunion at the same cabin with the same exact friends who technically got his siblings killed, because ‘it would mean a lot to them [his dead sisters]’ and this definitely isn’t a setup or anything. Already the cabling of my suspension of disbelief is snapping as the logic bridge threatens to be engulfed in the river of despair.
Until Dawn introduces you to each character with expertly nuanced vignettes on what makes each one of them tick granting you access to their deepest fears and desires. Haha. Psych. It just shows you rapid fire title cards with basic adjectives describing them. The cast of characters include Save the Cheerleader Save the World, Prerequisite Inoffensive Minority, Dudebro #1, Dudebro #2, Dudebro #3. These aren’t observations routed in race or sex, I don’t always require a rainbow coalition of characters. At the same time I would have enjoyed a cast at least diverse enough that I could rely on more than the color of their hair’s frosted tips to tell the difference from one character to the next. They carry the personalities of your typical horror movie frat dudebros. The personalities of cardboard a cat took a piss in. I mean we’ve already been here. Cabin in the Woods gave us a pretty good list of personality outlines, the Stoner, the Jock, the Virgin. Though I suppose if I am to keep a scorecard on who bites it when, I must do my best to keep track for the reader.
Sam: The cheerleader that still wears miniskirts.
Chris: A sarcastic douche who wears glasses.
Mike (or was it Matt): A sarcastic douche who does not wear glasses.
Matt (or was it Mike?): Black Guy
Meaghan Martin: I think they call her Jess.
The guy from Fargo: He’s my shrink.
Asian Girl
Papa Johns: The guy whose sisters were pwned.
Puffy Face Jaw Infection: Chris has a crush on her.
Flamethrower Man.
Likes Long Walks in the Snow and Snappy Comebacks. If you don’t like dogs or have bad teeth swipe left.
On with the story. Papa Johns at this point begins to declare to Chris that this is a weekend with no parents. A little later, Jess talks about how her parents will kill her for losing her cellphone. Oh. Oh god. I realize these holiday revelers, played by actors in their mid to late 20s with face modeling that makes them look 40 are meant to be teenagers. In-high-school-teenagers, not even the College variety (because I might buy that). I wonder if it ever occurred to the devs of Until Dawn that the reason most movies and television shows cast older to play younger is due to labor Laws, not because it actually makes your entertainment product better. I will concede it is very “slasher movie” to have much older actors play in teen roles. Unfortunately I just can’t give Until Dawn the credit of being that clever. I think either the game’s narrative changed along the way or they just wanted to go with “names” such as Hayden Panettiere and Brett Dalton, story indemnity be damned.
And it is quite a list of talents. Some, like Meaghan Martin or Peter Stormare are I dare say charming in their other works. Until Dawn takes their on-screen charm and reduces it to arid banter and high pitched yelling. They do their character models even less favors. See for yourself:
Meaghan Martin in the real world and Meaghan Martin as she’s… “re-imagined” in Until Dawn.
I think I’m meant to go gaga for the graphics. How detailed and expressive the characters are. But they have that weird, LA Noire, Uncanny Valley fake and plastic thing. Additionally any game worth its salt in this current generation has achieved this, so call me a cynic.
Back to our defacto sluts Matt and Meaghan. Libidos turned up so high they could melt wax. They are also both kind of assholes. I mark them for death first. I’m excited when I think I can finally cross off the first on my death list as they take reprieve in a cabin. Of course when the first actual compellingly spooky thing in this game occurs it cuts off abruptly to some other boring scene. Meanwhile Mike, the black guy, I decide gets to live a bit longer. Going by horror movie trope’s he is supposed to be first or second on the Death List, but as a character he doesn’t really do much. While I know that’s typically enough to get a black man killed these days, I refrain. Maybe I can give him an LL Cool J in Deep Blue Sea moment. Maybe he gets to blow up a shark with a lighter. We’ll see.
I suppose since this is a video game review site I should talk about the controls. It’d be nice if the game gave me controls to review. I could remark on how utterly satanic the control scheme is, how pairing off old school locked camera tank controls with David Cage interactivity, Telltale contextual actions and Quick Time Events make the controls some kind of meta experience on how playing the game is horror itself. I could talk about how badly the game runs either due to poor optimization or by choice (oh god) because locking your game at a stunning 14fps is “cinematic.” The truth however is this: The controls don’t matter. You should and likely will never lose due to the poor controls. At most you might have to worry about failing a Quick Time Event or the even more daunting “Don’t Do Anything” mechanic. Criticizing controls however is often reserved for how I “felt” playing the game. I felt nothing. The controls were as souless as this game made me feel.
R.L. Stine’s Mystery of Player Choice versus Common Sense.
This game I’ve noticed is also incapable of things such as “subtext” and “mystery.” If you’ve read/played/watched so much horror you think you can second guess Until Dawn’s narrative guess what? You probably can. Where most games might use all tools available to create an atmosphere of awe, fear and mystery, sometimes to the point of obtuse such as your Slenders and Five Nights, Until Dawn instead chooses to be incredibly on the nose. Everyone says exactly what they feel, even when they’re by themselves. Everyone tells you each exact plot twist how it happened. You can even tell exactly when a scare will occur. Hitchcock taught us sometimes it’s scarier when nothing happens. Until Dawn reinforces that with having spooky things occur so rapid fire it’s numbing.
The one credit I can give it is the camera angles and large maps have a disorientating affect on the game. It’s almost a bit like The Shining. Architecture just on the other side of making sense. Using the familiar and twisting it into the unknown. A shame then it’s all so linear and on rails and that subtle affect of confusion is extinguished by knowing the game will safely guide your hand at all times.
After two chapters of gentle dick rubbing we finally get to what looks like the steamy insides. Something actually happens beyond the three dozen or so jump scares I have now experienced. This isn’t rhetoric by the way, this game seems to carry a design doctrine of “At least three jump scares per character per chapter.” In fact there are so many screamers the game’s characters have to start jumping for me. Mick has to jump for me at one point, because I’m so over the jump scares, I was over it when they began. Anyway, a scary guy breaks into my house and he wears a clown mask. Then I encounter a scarecrow wearing a zombie mask.
I am glad it is wearing a zombie mask because it permits me to talk about the psyche sessions with Doctor Guy from Fargo, played by Peter Stormare. it’s a mechanic I recognize as being directly aped from Silent Hill: Shattered Memories which lucky enough no one has played, otherwise they might realize that other game reads your psyche profile better. At some point Doctor Fargo demands that I tell him what scares me more: Clowns or Scarecrows. Needles or Dogs. Clowns or Zombies. Now I have to admit none of this stuff scares me because I’m not 8 and something that might frighten me more is “Rejection by a Lover or Your Parent’s Impending Mortality” but I just chose Zombies because I can find those sort of vaguely creepy, and I want to move on with the game, move on with my life. Lo and behold. Exactly as I predicted. A Zombie jumpscare.
Dolls. Clowns. Cockroaches. Zombies. Children’s Lyrics. Thunder Storms. Blood. Crows. Manifest Destiny. Crows of the Scare variety. Bloody Crows. Bloody Crows of the Scare variety. Sunny Crows. You’re afraid of it? We got it.
I’m back in Fargo’s office. There’s more gore on his desk now. Because I had no other real choice but to tell him gore scares me. It doesn’t. But I told him that. This isn’t actually scary, it’s just silly. Why do you have gore on your desk? Why am I not calling the cops? I wonder if I told him I feared needles instead he’d have a hobo plugged up with hypodermics on his desk.
I didn’t have any real trouble with watching this cast bite the dust until I got to Miles’ succession of Quick Time Events and realized something. My natural instincts and reflexes as a gamer would not allow me to naturally fail. On top of that it was incredibly hard to fuck up and I could tell a “bad” choice from a mile away. If I wanted these people to die I would have to force myself to fuck up. This game was now inflicting active pain upon me, upsetting me for making me deny my ability as a gamer. I could feel my brain producing less testosterone and less adrenaline as a result. Now I was mad. Now I needed them to die harder to make up for my inability to let them die earlier.
Papa Johns explains the finer details of “It’s a Prank” law.
I’m Chris again. Puffy Face has been dragged away by La Clown. His calls of “Ashley!?” Into the woods is less monotone than “Jason” so there is at least that. I find Puffy Face and Papa John strapped to some death contraption and the game needs me to choose who lives. I can’t stand Puffy Face. She annoys me to no end with her shrill crying. I decide this is a good chance to get rid of her. However I figure if I choose to save Papa John, the game will go ahead and rescue Puffy Face. I figure this because people who write amateur chaos theory think it’s clever to give the gamer exactly what they don’t want. I choose to throw Puffy Face under the bus. The game saves Puffy Face. I close the application, restart, and this time tell the saw blades to go for Papa John. The game saves Puffy Face. Restart once more. Don’t do anything. The game saves Puffy Face. Restart. Try to leave. Can’t. The game saves Puffy Face.
I’ve learned something new. I’ve learned there’s exactly zero player agency. I’ve also learned the devs have taken all the wrong lessons from Chaos Theory and the Butterfly Effect. After Life is Strange and a certain Ashton Kutcher movie, I am convinced those that invoke the Butterfly Effect in an attempt to be 3deep5u basically acquired themselves a wikipedia level of knowledge on the subject and declared themselves a Ph. D. This is not what the Butterfly Effect is. What you’re actually writing about is Determinism. Go wiki that and get yourself a new Ph. D.
Deterministic determinism determining this is determined to happen 100% of the time you play through this.
Between Mickey’s survival and the non-choice to rescue Ashley, I make a steady realization. The same realization that alerted me as to what a piece of crap A Machine for Pigs’ was and the ineffectual ruse cruise of Phantom Pain and Life is Strange. The meta game thinking I’ve acquired after years of video gaming and story deconstruction only found from years of working as a script doctor. I’ve figured out my choices don’t matter. I don’t matter. If these kids are going to die, it will not be on my terms, it will only be upon the most linear moments, and there are so few chances for actual failure perhaps the game really does think I am 8 years old and afraid of clowns.
Then. Just like that. The last compelling thing about this game was erased. See, a lot of the game has resorted to “It’s just a prank, bro.” Most of the jump scares. Pranks. Even the game’s one big scare, it’s first major gore moment meant to jump start the story, all a prank dude. I go through the rest of it with all the caution of a wolf surrounded by baby deer.
I am now stuck with the black guy and Meaghan. I decide I like these two characters the best because the game uses them the least. I did not spend the time with them necessary to utterly hate them, like I have near every other character. They both ended up in a mine shaft very much alive despite my earlier desire and attempts to kill everyone. I pretty much just used something called “common sense” to make sure these two got to the end. I later find out it’s actually incredibly easy to get the black guy killed, in fact he dies the easiest. Typical. I’m not really going to be able to get MacDonald his LL Cool J moment of blowing up a shark, but I guess saving a naked white girl is good enough?
She shows her gratitude later with a very vague “He came back for me. How is that dude anyway? You know uh, the guy, he’s… Well. He’s. His hair is kinda… Not. Straight. Can I say bl… The. He’s got Melanin.”
The story has long since heel turned into the supernatural. Basically most the first half of the game was a pointless setup for a stupid prank that conveniently sets the characters up for an unrelated ticking clock. I’m going to spoil it now. Wendigoes did it. Wendegi? I don’t know the plural for Wendigos. The old Algonquian myth of half beast men. There’s a lot of other vaguely Native American stuff laced through out the game, including a lot of Butterfly totems that predict the future (because chaos theory). I’m not sure that butterflies or even totems are particularly Algonquian, but, we’ll roll with it. Because I have no choice. Anyway, one of the allegedly dead sisters from earlier turns into a Wendigo and heads out to get Wendigo revenge for the prank. This is the game all about the dangers of pranks.
Going back for subsequent playthroughs and paths reveals my general hypothesis. Additionally the few times I do encounter death, the Wendigo seems to prefer crushing my skull or some other head related minor injury. Such as decapitation. It’s not very varied. It kind of reminds me of that Kids in the Hall skit. “I am squishing your head.”
As the end credits roll Meaghan, Hayden, Jordan Fisher, et all give pretty strong performances as their outtro interviews play. When an actor monologues they get to let their true talents shine, and I think for the first time in this game they do a great job with their acting. Something that happens in spite of the voice direction they received. I got everyone to the end of this narrative, in spite of myself. In all fairness it was pretty easy. Fool proof, some might say. And some of these kids really deserved to die. Asian and Puffy Face really got on my last damn nerve. These exit interviews are kind of all over the map. With Shattered Memories, I was paranoid for weeks a video game nailed my psych profile so narrowly. With Until Dawn I wondered “Why is Asian Girl accusing Mikhail of not rescuing her when he did everything in his power to do so?” This wasn’t a game about choice. This is some kind of experiment where you tell the player they have choice then give them the absence of choice.
It’s funny because a game where you shot a squirrel and altered animal populations actually would be the Butterfly Effect.
I begin to wonder. Is this game a prank? Is me buying it, and putting up with the controls and frame rate, and making the ridiculous assumption I had any kind of impact on the characters or story all part of this elaborate farce? For all of its emphasis on Choice and multiple protagonists and Deterministic paths, it might be one of the greatest claims of choice with no actual choice I’ve ever seen. I mean the occasional win and fail states, sure, but no real choice, the game’s narrative is pretty rigid and inflexible, only allowing characters to die when the plot is done with them. In fact for the narrative they do have it’s flat out unnecessary to make one play twice to see alternate routes, it’s damn near time theft. Is that the joke? Am I going to stumble out my house bewildered by the events I witnessed only to have one of the devs jump out at me and shout IT’S A PRANK! If so this would be the most meta game I’ve ever played. The game that was an elaborate hoax. The game that was a prank. If so, I would have to give it 5 slimes.
For now, we’ll settle at 2.
EDIT: I was asked to give closure on Flamethrower Guy since I mentioned him in my Hit List then never again in my article. He was there to give the player a ton of exposition and then die.
EDIT 2: I wish I were LL Cool J.
