Until Dawn 💀🎮🕯️

🎬 Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers, shall we?

Until Dawn PS4 Original:

Until Dawn PS5 Remaster:

⚙️ A Few Things First

1. Yeah, I’m late to this game.
Like, really late. Under-a-rock-in-a-cave kinda late.
Back in 2015, horror games were a hard no for me—I scared easy. Like, leave the lights on to watch Scooby-Doo easy. I didn’t even start liking horror till 2017 when I saw IT with my sister—and even then I was flinching through half of it.

Also, I didn’t even own a PS4 until Christmas 2022, so… yeah. Late to the party.
But hey—with the Until Dawn movie remake about to drop, maybe my timing ain’t that bad after all.

2. I accidentally bought the Remastered version… and oof.
Not gonna lie, I kinda wish I’d played the original. The remaster swapped out the original soundtrack (RIP “O Death”) and changed the vibe. I found out after I bought it—classic me, clicking before reading.

3. I already knew everything before I hit ‘Start’.
Thanks, Twitch. And breakdown videos. I’d already seen every twist, every character arc, everything. So I didn’t get that fresh “holy crap what is happening” vibe like people did back in 2015.
But that made me even more curious—is it still worth playing even if you know how it ends?
Spoiler: yeah. Totally.

*4. I’ve been getting “constructive criticism” from people who “love” me and only want to “help.”
So this review is a bit more organized. Took me way longer. Had to use tools like Grammarly. But hey, I hope the people who “love” me and “only want to help” are happy now…

🎮 Plot Rundown (No Spoilers Yet)

You play as a group of friends meeting up at a super remote, super snowy cabin for the one-year anniversary of a tragedy.
(Because apparently, bad vibes and no cell service is the perfect setting for emotional healing?)

Here’s the gang:

Josh (played by Rami Malek before he was winning Oscars)
Mike (played by Brett Dalton aka that guy from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)
Sam, Chris, Ashley, Jessica, Matt, Emily
Plus Josh’s twin sisters: Beth and Hannah

The game opens with a nasty prank: Mike pretends to be into Hannah (who’s crushing on him hard) and lures her to a room. The others are hiding, ready to humiliate her. Yup. Real classy.

She finds out, gets wrecked emotionally, and runs out into the freezing woods. Beth chases after her.

In the woods, they come face to face with some dude in goggles and a flamethrower (because why not?) who seems like he’s trying to attack them. They panic. They fall off a cliff. Boom. That’s your intro.

🎵 Cue opening credits (in the remake).

New theme song, which I actually really like:

One year later….

Josh invites the same group back to the same cabin. Because that’s a great idea.

Sam goes to take a bath (because horror game)
Josh finds a Ouija board and starts a séance with Ashley and Chris (because nothing bad happens when you start a séance)
Mike and Jessica wander off for alone time but fall into a mine (romantic)
Matt and Emily go search for her missing bag (because that’s obviously urgent)

Things escalate quickly:

There’s a pig’s head on a stick.
Creepy clues everywhere.
You find totems that give you little visions of how people might die. (Cool and totally stress-free.)

Oh—and then Josh gets sawed in half.
Dunn dunn dunn!

The rest of the group starts piecing together what’s going on… but things get even weirder from there.

Why’s there a guy with a flamethrower?
Who’s the killer in the mask?
And what are those totems even warning us about?

Let’s just say the title Until Dawn isn’t just for vibes—it’s a survival deadline.
You’re stuck. You’ve gotta make it until morning.
And not everyone’s gonna make it.

🕹️ Gameplay Breakdown

This ain’t your average “run and gun” horror game. You’re not out here slashing zombies or picking up glowing ammo. Nope.

This game plays like a full-on interactive movie—with you calling the shots.

You decide what people say. Where they go. Who they trust. Who they save. Who they accidentally doom forever.

It’s all about the Butterfly Effect:
One tiny decision can screw you (or someone else) six hours later.
You tell Mike to take a shortcut? He might trip and die.
Choose not to warn Jessica? Guess what. She’s toast.

Also—there’s no take-backs.
You mess up? Someone dies? That’s it. The story moves on like welp, guess they’re dead now.

🛋️ Psychiatrist Check-ins

Every now and then, you cut away from the cabin madness to this weird therapy session with a guy named Dr. Alan Hill.
He’s intense. He talks directly to you.

And you’re playing as this gloved-up, shadowy figure sitting across from him.
Who is this mystery dude?
Why are you in therapy mid-horror game?

Stick around. It pays off.

💡Remaster Bonus

Since I played the PS5 version, I gotta say—it looks phenomenal.
Lighting, shadows, character faces—it’s way more cinematic than I expected.

The remaster also sneaks in some new scenes and a secret ending, which I haven’t unlocked yet… but challenge accepted.

Also the atmosphere in the game is both mesmerizing and haunting.

The Wolfie Problem: A Rant in Mini-Con Form 🐺🎮

False Choice, Cheap Punishment
Wolfie’s fate isn’t tied to a meaningful decision, it’s tied to whether you happened to pick up a tiny, easy-to-miss item in the same chapter. That’s not narrative consequence — that’s an Easter egg hunt.

Punishing the Wrong Thing
Until Dawn markets itself as “your choices matter.” Choices like who do you trust? who do you save? who do you betray? But with Wolfie, it’s not about moral weight or QTE skill — it’s about whether you played like a completionist. Explore every corner? Congrats, dog lives. Miss one dark-lit prompt? Dog dies.

Accessibility Fail
What if your screen brightness is low? What if the prompt blends into the environment? What if your eyesight isn’t perfect? Too bad. Your wolf companion is punished because you didn’t squint hard enough. That’s not fair design — that’s a slap in the face.

Breaking the Player Bond
Wolfie is one of the only genuinely innocent, loyal characters in the game. You bond with him, you feel hope through him, and then the devs yank him away not because of an emotional decision you made — but because you didn’t check a drawer hard enough. That hurts in the wrong way.

Fans Walked Away Mad
People didn’t leave that chapter thinking, “Oh man, my choices had weight.” They left thinking, “Congrats, I didn’t explore enough, and the game punished me for it.” That’s not catharsis, that’s frustration. Wolfie’s death felt less like tragedy and more like the devs wagging a finger: “Ha, you missed the shiny object.” basically it boils down to “Congrats, you’re not a completionist — enjoy being punished.”

Why Wolfie’s Section Kills the Tension

The Wolfie chapter in Until Dawn is one of the few spots where the game’s cinematic horror flow breaks down, and it’s all because of how survival is tied to exploration.

Kills Urgency:
The story sets up a frantic atmosphere — Mike alone in the sanatorium, Wendigos lurking, every corner dangerous. But the moment you realize you have to scour every nook and cranny to guarantee Wolfie’s survival, the tension collapses. Instead of racing through in fear, you’re wandering slowly, poking at every shelf and locker.

Turns Mike into “Rambo”:
Instead of a desperate guy trying to survive, Mike suddenly feels like a scavenger action hero. He’s got time to loot like it’s Resident Evil, stockpiling supplies while the supposed monsters politely wait offscreen. It breaks immersion, because no one in real danger would stop mid-chase to search every corner.

Breaks Horror Pacing:
Horror thrives on momentum. The fear builds when the story pushes you forward, when you’re forced to make snap choices under pressure. Stopping to sweep the room for an obscure item slows the tempo to a crawl, undercutting the dread. The result isn’t suspense — it’s busywork.

By tying Wolfie’s survival to item collection, the game not only undermines its own “choices matter” theme, it also kills the pacing that makes horror effective in the first place. What should be a pulse-pounding chapter turns into a scavenger hunt, and players walk away frustrated instead of terrified.

The Fix (How It Should’ve Been)

Tie Wolfie’s survival to a clear, moral or bravery-driven choice:

Do you risk yourself to protect him from the Wendigo, or do you save your own skin?

Do you stand your ground and fight, or flee and leave him behind?

That way, if Wolfie dies, it’s because Mike chose self-preservation — not because the player didn’t sweep the room like they were in Resident Evil. That would’ve fit the butterfly-effect theme and made his death feel earned, not cheap.

⚠️ Spoilers Ahead – You’ve Been Warned ⚠️

This is where things go from teen drama in the woods to full-blown WTF just happened.

So let’s talk about our mysterious masked killer.

The guy tying people up, setting up Jigsaw-style traps, and generally ruining everyone’s night?

It’s Josh.
DUNN DUNN DUNNN!

Yeah. Josh. The guy who invited everyone back to the cabin in the first place.

Turns out, he wasn’t handling the death of his sisters super well (shocking).
So he cooked up an elaborate revenge prank to make his friends “feel the pain” they caused that night.

Cameras, fake blood, a whole saw-you-in-half setup—it’s like if Punk’d and Saw had a baby and that baby needed serious therapy.

Oh, speaking of therapy?

Remember those scenes with Dr. Hill, the psychiatrist?

Turns out, that’s all inside Josh’s head.
He’s the mystery guy in the chair.
You’ve been sitting in your own mind this whole time, having sessions with your mental breakdown.

And Josh? Diagnosed, medicated… but also probably dealing with untreated schizophrenia.
Which might explain how he’s both orchestrating fake murders and chilling like it’s no big deal.

And then another twist within the twist:

Josh isn’t the real villain.
He’s just the warm-up act.

🔥 Enter: THE WENDIGOS 🔥

Yeah. This game flips the script hard.
Just when you think it’s another “killer in a mask” story, it swerves into full-on supernatural horror.

That flamethrower guy from earlier? Not a psycho—he’s actually trying to help.
He’s part Cree and knows all about the Wendigo legend:

If you eat human flesh in these mountains, you don’t just get a bad Yelp review—you get possessed.

So what really happened the night Beth and Hannah fell?

Beth died.
Hannah survived.
She got stuck underground, broke her leg, and after days of starvation… she ate her sister. Also, this is what the Wendigo looks like in this game.

🥶Cue curse.

The spirit of the Wendigo, just hanging around waiting for this exact opportunity, pounces.
She becomes The Makkapitew—the queen of the Wendigos.You know it’s her because Josh recognizes her butterfly tattoo.

And here’s where things get straight-up tragic:

Even as a Wendigo, Hannah does stuff that shows she’s still in there. Somewhere.

She drags Josh away instead of killing him.
She saves Mike by tossing another Wendigo out of the way.
She hesitates—like she knows these people.
😭 Honestly? Gutting.

⚠️ Also warning, this game has 2 dogs that get killed off brutally, so if you don’t like seeing dogs dying then this might not be your type of game. Granted I don’t like seeing dogs dying. It devastates me, but I still enjoyed this game ⚠️

🎇 Final Showdown

The gang ends up in the lodge again. Gas is leaking.
Mike decides: blow the place sky-high.

Emily makes a run for the switch.
Just as another Wendigo leaps at her—BOOM—Hannah intercepts and tackles it.

The whole place ignites.
Flames. Screams. Explosion.

The Wendigo spirits?
They vanish into the night, waiting for the next poor soul to crack.

Josh?
He’s in the mines. Alone. Starving. Broken.

And yep—he eats someone.
DUNN. DUNN. DUNNN.
Josh becomes the next Wendigo.

And the credits roll while the survivors get hauled off by helicopter…
…and interviewed by cops who are definitely not ready for any of this.

🎮 Final Thoughts + Rating

So here’s the thing:
Even though I went in already knowing every twist, every character death, every “oh crap” moment…
This game still had me.

It’s smart.
It’s emotional.
It’s completely insane in the best way.
And the pivot—from teenage slasher flick to full-on supernatural folklore horror? 🔥
Genius.

Yeah, it’s got every horror cliché in the book:

Overdramatic teens doing dumb things
Seances gone wrong
“Let’s split up!” decisions that make you scream at the screen
But somehow… it works.
Because the game knows it’s leaning into the cheese.

🌀 The Butterfly Effect stuff is wild.
🎭 The psychological layers with Josh? Messy and brilliant.
👹 And the Wendigo lore? Weirdly respectful and super detailed.

Also: replay value = off the charts.
Every decision you make changes what happens.
People live or die. Secrets get uncovered—or don’t.
You could play this thing 3 or 4 times and get a totally different ending each time.