Game Review: Play wisely, your life (in Until Dawn) depends on it

In a series of inconsequential events, you can watch your life unravel or flourish — and it all depends on you.

Until Dawn (2015) is an interactive drama horror video game developed by Supermassive Games and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It is exclusive to the PlayStation 4 (PS4).

The movie-like story is centered around the butterfly effect chaos theory. The butterfly effect is most simply defined as the sensitive dependence on initial conditions where a small change can lead to unpredictable variation in the future state. The outcome of Until Dawn, therefore, relies on your words and actions.

Players assume third-person control of eight young adults who have returned to Joshua Washington’s retreat home on Blackwood Mountain one year after the death of his sisters.

Until Dawn captures the delicate nature of the consequences of one’s decisions and integrates real, familiar actors. The familiarity of some of the characters may contribute to the growing popularity of gaming itself.

Rami Malek is an award-winning actor most popularly known for his lead role in the television series, Mr. Robot (2015-2019) and Bohemian Rhapsody (2018). Camp Rock (2008) fans may recognize Jessica who played Tess Taylor in the musical romance film. Emily may be familiar if one has seen Nichole Bloom in Project X (2012) or the later seasons of Shameless (2011-2021).

Not only is Until Dawn included with a PS Now account, but it is also only $19.99 without it! Given the state of coronavirus, Until Dawn can be a horrifyingly fun escape from the chaos for a similar duration of a scary film without all of the congestion of visiting a theater.