Horror picks: Until Dawn

When choosing a Halloween horror game, obvious classics come to mind. Could it be the lonely darkness of an empty space station where monsters stalk every shadow like Dead Space? Maybe the panic of being hunted by evils far beyond your power like in Amnesia or Outcast? Or even the slow paced yet terror inducing survival style of Resident Evil?

My choice is rather more divergent. For me, the best, most dread filled game is the 2014 PS4 exclusive Until Dawn. What is unique about this game isn’t its style or plot; as a third person style survival horror akin to something between Resident Evil and Dead Space, many would superficially assume this game to be nothing special. However, this couldn’t be more wrong.

Waiting for the U1 bus like. Image Credit Super Massive/ PressXtra

This game’s unique aspect is taking the choice-based style of games like Mass Effect or Heavy Rain to a scary extreme. Every single decision you make, no matter how inconsequential it seems at the time, can fundamentally change the plot and the ability for the eight characters you play as to survive. If you dreamed of testing decisions and their consequences, then reloading a past save, then stop that thought right now: there are no saves and no reloading. Every single decision is permanent.

Imagine me then, a player with zero coordination at the best of times, trying to navigate a chase scene. Used to a gaming world of respawns and retries, my mistakes in Quick Time Events seemed irrelevant, until I learnt to my horror the girl I was running off to save was dead by the time I arrived. While she was neither developed nor likeable, even then my guilt was immense. I had in a very literal sense killed her; she had died because of my mistakes.

You are perpetually in fear of what’s next in the game, in a manner no other game can match, because in this case you may have caused it

What the game offers is ultimate power: there are hundreds of endings, all of which are shaped solely by your choices and actions. However, this ultimate power isn’t enriching, for as a wise man once said: ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. Fundamentally you feel responsible for every death. You are perpetually in fear of what’s next in the game, in a manner no other game can match, because in this case you may have caused it.

Essentially it all comes back to one truth: responsibility and guilt are far scarier and far more real than aliens or monsters will ever be.