PS5 Review: Until Dawn

Can you survive Until Dawn…again?

Rebuilt and enhanced for PS5 consoles and PC – Until Dawn invites you to relive the nightmare, and immerse yourself in a gripping slasher horror where every decision can make the difference between life and death.

I reviewed the original Until Dawn in 2015 and loved every damn moment with it. I always wanted to go back to it, but never got round to it so I was pleased to hear about a remake as it’d give me an excuse to replay what I consider to be one of the best horror games out there. With a killer cast including Hayden Panettiere, Brett Dalton and a little known actor called Rami Malek who would later jump from this role into Elliot Alderson for Mr Robot, Freddie Mercury for Bohemian Rhapsody and even Bond villain Lyutsifer Safin in No Time To Die, so he hasn’t done bad for himself…

The remake is done by studio Ballistic Moon, as original developers Supermassive Games went their own way to make The Dark Pictures Anthology series, The Quarry and The Casting of Frank Stone respectively. It utilises the PS5 hardware well with fast-loading, makes good use of the DualSense’s unique features like haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, which can really intensify moments like decision making or the many QTEs the game throws at you.

There are a few nice surprises for returning fans, but it feels like this was made more for a new generation of gamers than those coming back to it. I was also surprised to see that the game doesn’t have any Hint support, even for collectibles…which is unlike a first-party PS5 game. I get that they probably want players to discover the follies of their choices themselves or to find the Totems that give premonitions of fatal decisions and how to avoid, but the collectibles are a weird one to not give any direct hints from the console.

Besides that, the remake runs well. It would have been nice for it to have a 60FPS option, but considering how great it looks I’d imagine only a PS5 Pro could pull that off. Maybe one day I’ll get one and let you all know if it runs any better…I’m open to donations for that. I didn’t come across any glitches during my playthrough, the soundtrack is superb and the voice-acting is authentic to the original.

The Verdict

If you missed out on the original Until Dawn, then now is the time to see what the fuss is all about. It’s a great remake and while I would have liked to see more for returning fans, I’m still glad to replay one of my favourite horror titles.

Score: 9.0