Until Dawn Analysis By Bryan Quevedo
In
this day and age, it is almost impossible for a development studio to create an
original IP without it being criticized for some sort of poor mechanics or
being a copy and paste of an already existing game. The market for creativity seems to be slowly
diminishing as big publishers release sequels to popular titles that change
very little from its predecessors; not just seen within the graphics of a video
game but also within how the game is played. That is not the case for
development studio, Supermassive Games, and a massive game they recently
released called Until Dawn.
What
makes this game unique isn’t its cheesy title and cliché set ups, but the way
the game is played and how players watch this game unfold. Until Dawn plays
much like a movie where the choices you make affect the outcomes of the game
and how you proceed throughout the main story of the game. Unless you watch a play through or actually
play this game for yourself, comparing this movie style game to others like
Beyond Two Souls or Heavy Rain would diminish what this game has tried to do;
it has done a lot to perhaps change the way games can be played. This is in no way a review article, rather a
look at how the direction this game took will possibly open doors for future
games.
As mentioned
before, Until Dawn revolves around the choice a player makes, and each move
affects the relationships between characters, their personalities which affects
choices and what outcome you will end up with at the end of the game. It sets up like any typical slasher movie,
with a group of young teenagers vacationing somewhere far from society only to
be attacked by an unknown antagonist.
Each character will either develop differently according to choices made
and will either have good relationships with the rest of the cast or bad ones
that could lead to death. You as a
player, must pick these choices (or sometimes not choose any option at all) and
follow through some quick time events which leads to some surprisingly intense
moments that could test your real life choices if you were put within a similar
situation. Until Dawn goes even further,
giving you the feel of a psychological analysis in between scenes where your morals
and fears are questioned. Jump scares
and proper character development lead to an immersing experience that fulfill a
suspenseful horror atmosphere.
Much of the game’s
success is due to its Butterfly Effect mechanic that allows players to explore
various options that the games have to offer.
Did you decide to bring up a sensitive topic or hide instead of
run? Every choice leads to something
different, a mechanic tried in many other games but never as immersive as seen
in Until Dawn. Graphically the game
looks amazing and the amount of dialogue and story lines this game contains, on
the surface, looks to be vast. Which is
a surprisingly in depth game mechanic that other games have not yet attempted to
explore as much as they should. Games
like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, give players the illusion of choice with
choices that are either good or bad and can affect what dialogue or what
characters are left alive at the end. No
matter what route the player decides to take, the outcomes come out to be very
similar. This isn’t the case for Until
Dawn and the reason lies in how players make the irreversible choices. The butterfly effect game mechanic is by far
one of the biggest illusions of choice seen in video up to date, and one that I
personally believe can change the way choice based games can be created. Developers can learn from Until Dawn; allowing
players to choose the way they want to play the game allows for both a more in
depth experience and lets players feel as if the outcome is more in line with
themselves rather than a community as a whole.
Not to say that all games, such as Metal Gear and Assassin’s Creed,
should be developed this way, but developing individual properties could be
more successful if this were the case.
This can be an extremely successful mechanic that could be implemented
in newer IPs, and Until Dawn has shown us that expanding the mechanics of a
game does not come at a cost.
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