Is Until Dawn a Good Horror Movie? | Game Design Critique

Hi, this is Mark Brown with Game Maker's Toolkit,
a series on video game design.

Sony's new PS4 game Until Dawn is billed as
an interactive horror film, where

TRAILER DUDE: Only your choices determine who will survive

And I want to talk about that, but not about how

much you can effect the story with your choices.

Because, it's basically identical to the systems
we've seen in games by Telltale and Quantic

Dream. Yes, your decisions will make a dent
in the plot, but it's also full of false choices,

characters who can't die until the very end,
branching paths that snap back to a central

point, and that cute little indicator to tell
you that this choice will definitely have

an effect on the plot, somewhere down the
line.

CHRIS: Boom, butterfly effect

It does have some ideas that I haven't seen
in one of these types of games before, though.

Sometimes, you'll get a nice sepia-tinged
flashback, to give you a better idea of which

choices led up to the events onscreen.

But don't be fooled by these screens which
show how all your choices play out, and the

incredibly granular meters that show your
current personality traits and relationships

to the other characters. They're all a bit
smoke and mirrors, to be honest.

And that's fine. As we talked about in this
video, these games aren't about offering infinite

story states. And simply making choices is
often more fulfilling than seeing wildly unique

consequences play out. Plus, games are expensive
to make without considering a billion unique

paths. Especially when they look like this.

DR HILL: I believe that in our last session, you were
not completely honest with me.

So what I want to talk about, is the question
of whether all these choices and their consequences

- especially the more grisly, blood-soaked
of the consequences - can actually lead to

good drama.

Because, while it is true that any story can
become more meaningful and memorable when

you're having a say on the proceedings. Much
like how almost anything is improved with

the addition of cooperative play.

Or chocolate

Does that actually make the stories dramatically satisfying?

And this question is especially important
to Until Dawn as it wants to play out like

a Hollywood horror movie. This isn't a naturalistic
story like The Wire, where characters can

be snuffed out seemingly at random. This is
a horror movie, man...

RANDY: There's a formula to it! A very simple formula!

The game is heavily based on slasher movies.
It's got a bunch of horny teenagers, getting

together in a isolated cabin in the woods,
on the anniversary of some horrible event.

And there's a psychopath, who wants to pick
them off - one by one.

It also has elements of psychological horror
and torture porn and - well, I don't want

to spoil things. So let's stick to slasher
flicks.

The thing about these movies is that there
is always a very specific reason why some

characters live, and others die. And sometimes,
importance is placed on the sequence of the

kills, too. In early slasher flicks, for example,
it was all about morals. Sniffy, puritanical,

thou shalt not morals, maybe, but those were
the rules.

RANDY: There are certain rules that one must abide
by to successfully survive a horror movie.

RANDY: Number one. You can never have sex. Big no
no! Big no no!

STU: You're dead Meg. RANDY: Sex equals

death, okay? Number two. You can never drink,
or do drugs.

No, it's the sin factor. It's a sin. It's an extension of number one.

Break those rules and you'll be killed, leaving
one last girl. An innocent, virginal, Final

Girl. Early slashers were often criticised
for being misogynistic. Which should make

them the perfect source material for video
games.

Anyway, the point is that in drama, people
die for a reason. Whether that's a heroic sacrifice or

in vengeance or to give another character motivation
to do something, or - in horror movies - because

they smoked pot, or chugged a beer, or were
a total bully.

But when interactivity comes into play, the
rules can go out of the window. In Until Dawn,

take Emily, who is a monster bitch.

MATT: Let me think. EMILY: Don't think you idiot just get me outta here!

She would be killed in the most gruesome
way possible in any horror movie, but can

survive the entire night in Until Dawn, while
her put upon boyfriend Matt is, uh, hung out to dry

Or take Jess and Mike. Horror movie tropes say
these sexpots should die, while innocent characters

should live. But that's not how things work
in Until Dawn. In fact, any combination of characters

can make it to the finale.

And you'll probably end with multiple survivors.
If not all of them making it through the night,

even though that goes against the horror movie
set up where just one person survives.

But even if you don't care about horror movie
formulas. Or you revel in the idea of a horror

flick that ignores them entirely, the interactive
story can sometimes just be... a bit rubbish.

Take Jess, for example, who gets killed in the game, but
you don't see a body so of course she's going

to come back. And she does: hours later into
the story she wakes up, alone, in the mines.

And then, in my game, she walked forward a few paces, and was immediately killed. Oh. I think any script editor

would put a big red circle around that scene.

And that's the thing: while interactivity
can lead to more memorable, more surprising,

and more personal narratives, without the
smart guiding hand of a director or a script

editor, the story can fall apart. It can be
desperately unsatisfying, or lack important

elements like character arcs, poetic justice,
and good pacing.

And that's the way it will always be. Thanks
for watching, please like, comment, and subscribe.

Throw all your money at my Patreon - and,
wait. Actually. Maybe we can fix this.

You see, the thing I liked the most about Until Dawn
is that you get to control eight different

characters. That's much more than games like
Life is Strange, Tales from the Borderlands,

and Beyond: Two Souls.

Which meant that while I normally play these
sorts of games as a kind and compassionate

character, having eight different people to
play with, some of them archetypical arseholes

and narcissists, I felt much more comfortable
role playing them as jerks. And while I tried

my best to save my favourite characters, like
Sam, Chris, and Ashley, I was happy for the

others to make dumb decisions and wouldn't
really mind if they ended up as puddles of

bones and teeth.

I realised that I wasn't really playing as
the characters, but the as the director. Influencing

who lived and who died, based on my own judgmental
preferences. Suddenly, those horror rules

were falling back into place and the story
was way less disconnected.

Perhaps you might want to try and subvert
the most problematic tropes of horror movies.

Have the ditzy, slutty blonde survive
the ordeal, stop the black guy from getting

killed first, or have the archetypical Final
Girl bite it at the last moment.

And you do have some ability to influence
events in a specific way, because the deaths

often follow some internal logic. Characters
can get killed if you screw up quick-time

events. Messing with those relationship meters
can lead to at least one death. And if you

ignore the tropes of the genre - like wandering
off from the group to investigate a spooky

noise - then perhaps that character deserves
to get killed for not watching enough horror movies.

And then there are these totems, which is
another clever mechanic. Find one of these

and pick it up, and it will show you a clip
of one of the characters getting killed or

surviving an attack. They're vague, but you
might be able to use them to help guide later choices.

But not all deaths are so easy to foresee.
Understandable, of course, as Supermassive

wanted to surprise you. And the legions of
YouTubers who have made this game famous.

So, your choice of how to deal with this flare
gun, for example, is an almost entirely opaque

decision but will have huge consequences for
Emily and Matt.

And that's only if, like me, you were even
trying to tell a specific story. Until Dawn

doesn't give players any instructions, and
while the trophies - which reward you for

finishing the game with certain combinations
- could push you to try and get a specific

outcome, they're all hidden trophies.

So how about this for an idea. And, before I go on, I
want to acknowledge that maybe I am trying

to make the game into something that it's not.
And, for the record, I really enjoyed Until

Dawn and would recommend it. But, what if
the game was actually about being the director.

Similar gameplay, but at the outset of the game you would be told who must live and who must die

and maybe even in what order. And then, you'd have to
force the characters to act in different ways

to ensure their death or survival. For those
who are fated to die, you must act immorally

and say nasty things to force the big baddy
to enact poetic justice on their guts, or

play into obvious horror cliches and get them
split up from the rest of the group.

The game could be a lot shorter, but designed
to be replayed over and over again with different

instructions each time. It would also need
some random elements, to keep you on your

toes and also ensure that those jump scares
and creepy moments don't become blasé.

Because here's the main issue that nags at
Until Dawn. On the one hand it, it wants to

be a horror movie where characters get killed
in increasingly gruesome ways. But on the

other hand, it's a video game, and video games are
there to be won.

Games teach us to make the smart dialogue
decisions that will give us the best outcomes.

When buttons flash up on the screen,
we've been taught to hit them as quickly as

possible. And systems, like the totems that
warn of potential deaths, are supposed to

be solved, right?

Until Dawn the movie wants everyone to die.
But Until Dawn the game wants everyone to

survive. Something's gotta give.

That conflict is somewhat solved when you
put yourself in the director's chair. And

try your hand at being Wes Craven or John
Carpenter. But without that push, and reliable

mechanics, many players could miss out on
Until Dawn's greatest pleasures.

Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed the
episode - if you did, please give it a like

on YouTube. Plus: how would you make an interactive
horror movie, or did Supermassive get it right?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments
below.