By the time I got toUntil Dawnin 2017, it already looked a little dated. The impressive facial capture that had rendered its representations of stars Hayden Panettiere and Rami Malek believable was looking a little creaky, even just two years removed from its initial release. I still had a great time —Supermassive’s modern horror classic remains an effective thrill ride — but I cringed a little as the graphical equivalent of a broken ski lift left me stranded in the uncanny valley.
So, it’s great news that Until Dawn is coming toPS5andPC, “rebuilt and enhanced” by Ballistic Moon. The newly formed studio has some key personnel from the game’s original developer, Supermassive Games — including creative director Neil McEwan, who was a game director at Supermassive — so this is kinda like when a studio remasters its own game but with extra steps. Supermassive itself is busy developing Little Nightmares 3, Dead by Daylight spin-off The Casting of Frank Stone, The Dark Pictures Anthology: Directive 8020, and — given the speed with which the studio has cranked out games in the past — probably a decent amount of other stuff we don’t know about yet.
Until Dawn remains Supermassive’s best game, which is another reason I can’t wait to revisit it.
Thetrailerlooks great, though it lingers on atmospheric shots of the environment for most of its runtime. Toward the end, we do start to get some frantic shots of characters running. And then, eventually, the trailer ends with Hayden Panettiere turning to face the camera. The updated model looks great, and will effectively bring Until Dawn up to current-gen standards. But this does have me wondering about the game’s future on the next generation of consoles. And the one after that.
Most games, if they’re good at the time of release, don’tneedremasters so much as they need to be ported to modern systems. I playedHalf-Life 2for the first time in 2020 and its visual datedness only added to the charm. When gameplay holds up, modern graphics can take away some of the special sauce that makes a game unique.Fallout 3’s greens and browns so fully evoke 2007, for example, that updating the graphics would ruin the experience for me.
There are other games in the same mold as Until Dawn that don’t need remasters. Most of Telltale’s games were stylized, with a comic book aesthetic that gaveThe Wolf Among UsandThe Walking Deada timeless feel. They were never especially smooth on the technical end, so some tweaking could help under the hood. But the look holds up.
Until Dawn is a different beast. The game was always aiming for photorealistic graphics so that it would feel like a ‘90s slasher in interactive form. Supermassive has pursued the same strategy with its later horror games, too. The Quarry and the four mainline Dark Pictures Anthology games all cast famous actors like Will Poulter, Jesse Buckley, and Shawn Ashmore, plus Suite Life of Zack & Cody alums Ashley Tisdale and Brenda Song, then recreate their likenesses as realistically as possible. You’re supposed to feel like you’re playing a movie, and photorealism is how Supermassive achieves that effect.
A remaster is the right choice for Until Dawn. The game is aiming to strike a delicate balance, contrasting (believable) photorealism with (unbelievably) outlandish horror antics that strain credibility. Giving the game a fresh coat of paint to bring it up to 2024 standards is a way of restoring that balance. At least until the dawn of a new generation.
