Gripped by fear and with tensions in the group running high, you’ll be forced to make snap decisions that could mean life or death for everyone involved. Every choice you make while playing as each of the eight friends – even the seemingly trivial ones – will carve out your own unique story.

This highly-charged emotional investment allows players to fear for a character’s safety and is crucial to enjoying the game, your actions alone will decide who survives Until Dawn.

As a team of Until Dawn fans and horror lovers, our intention has not been to alter the events of that fateful night. Instead, we have focused on giving the original game a cinematic update, offering the player a more intimate experience by enhancing the visual storytelling. 

Overhauled visuals rebuilt in Unreal Engine 5

Our new Until Dawn experience has been built from the ground up using Unreal Engine 5. We have updated character models, environments, interactable props, visual effects, and animations, all designed to maximize the Until Dawn experience on both PS5 and PC.

We have completely relit the game to take advantage of Unreal Engine 5’s rendering features, including raytracing and enhanced materials, focusing on a more atmospheric and “modern horror” experience.

One of our key visual improvements for Until Dawn has been around revisiting the character models and bringing them in line with modern advances in character modeling and rendering. Improvements to textures, materials, rendering and animation performance have all contributed to higher fidelity characters who we hope will resonate with both new players and existing fans of the game.

We’ve used modern pre-rendering simulation techniques to create more realistic real time fluids and you can see all the gory glory of this particularly in our updated character deaths. We’ve also updated our injury mask system which allows us to add elements like cuts, bruises, tears, snow and water to the character’s bodies. 

Revised cinematography, production design & new camera control mechanic

By using a combination of fixed and over-the-shoulder camera views, you can now see the world of Until Dawn from entirely new perspectives. Blending the cinematography of the original with the introduction of a modern third-person camera, we hope to bring new life to characters and locations. The camera’s flexibility allows us to place new emphasis on important moments and tell the story from a view closer to the characters.

Reworked prologue

Although we have committed to keeping the original narrative intact, we felt the Prologue would benefit from some adjustments to its narrative pacing. We’ve given the Washingtons extra screen time to explore their close family bond and get to know them a little better. We have also reframed some of the original scenes and developed the context around the infamous prank. We hope this enhances its emotional impact.

New collectibles

For the collectors and explorers among you, keep your eyes peeled because we’ve relocated all the original totems to be found all over again.  We’ve also added Hunger totems, a special new type of totem that holds a different kind of vision to the others. The game has also been sprinkled with new interactions and small new areas that hold them. This adds extra context and detail to the world of Until Dawn and rewards player exploration.

Customizable settings

We are proud to implement new accessibility and usability settings that will help more players enjoy the game. Additionally, we’ve created a new optional alternative for the Don’t Move mechanic called Stay Calm. Stay Calm is for third party peripherals that do not feature a gyroscope or for players who prefer a different challenge. 

Key Features

• Set at an isolated mountain lodge where nothing is as it seems, 8 friends try to stay alive with a killer on the loose. Players define the relationships between the characters through dialogue and experience the night from their unique point of view. Written in collaboration with famed horror writers and directors Larry Fessenden and Graham Reznick, find out who will survive Until Dawn.
• Harnessing  the power of an evolved Killzone  Shadowfall engine, this 3rd person interactive horror will shock and horrify players thanks to its realistic graphics  and  edge  of  your  seat  gameplay  as  they  navigate  their  way  through  a terrifying night.  The DualShock 4 motion sensor functionality will track how still you can  be  whilst  in  hiding  from  Until  Dawn’s  fearsome  terrors  and  the  camera  will capture player scares as they happen to share with friends.
• Players carve their path to survival with branching story lines which mean that no two stories will be the same. Decisions, big and small, will shape each player’s unique story. Inspired by the chaos theory, the butterfly effect could make trivial split-second decisions ripple into moments of grave peril.
• Place yourself in impossible situations where there is no right or wrong answer. Friend or foe, live or die – make these decisions before it’s too late.
• With spine-tingling performances from a talented cast of Hollywood actors, including Hayden Panettiere (Heroes, Nashville) and Rami Malek, Until Dawn delivers credible performances that forge an emotional bond with players.

Currently available for PS4, Until Dawn is coming to PS5 and PC (Steam) on October 4, 2024.