If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent quality time daydreaming about what kind of horror movie you’d make if given the opportunity. You’ve got the location locked down, the killer on the call sheet, and have choreographed the perfect chase scene around your house. And while it might not be possible to conjure up a Hollywood production out of thin air, you can experience the next best thing in interactive horror by pressing play on the PS5 remake of Supermassive Games’ smash hit Until Dawn. I hope you do well under pressure because it’s time to put your director cap on and call “action” on one fateful night atop Blackwood Mountain, where a cast of potential victims is waiting for your dexterous fingers and on-the-fly choices to determine whether they’ll live to see the sunrise.

A Supermassive Success

Founded in 2008 by Pete Samuels, Supermassive Games started small, making second-party games for Sony, such as DLC for their LittleBigPlanet franchise. A few years later, they began developing Until Dawn for the PS3, which would have been played from a first-person POV utilizing the now-defunct Playstation Move controller. Thankfully, it was switched into development on the more powerful PS4 using a third-person perspective. With a plot influenced by popular horror films and other interactive videogame dramas such as the PS3 mystery Heavy Rain – itself inspired by films like Se7en – Supermassive cast a strong group of actors for motion capture and voice-acting that included Hayden Panettiere, Peter Stormare, and a then primarily unknown Rami Malek. It was a heavy swing, and the gamble paid off, as the Sony exclusive was a surprise success for the studio upon its release in August 2015.

With a hot young cast and a plot that samples cinema’s best, it’s no surprise that gamers took kindly to it, which transcended anything seen before in the medium. In very I Know What You Did Last Summer fashion, an annual night of partying at a chic mountain lodge between a close-knit group of friends quickly turns fatal. One year later, a surprising request asks the group to take the cable car back up the snowy mountain and reunite to remember their fallen besties and keep tradition alive. Before long, all manner of chills and thrills creep out of the shadows as you call the shots and navigate these friends through one long night full of genre mashups and gory demise. To say anything else would spoil the fun, but between the fully realized characters and numerous plot twists, your direct control over their fates will leave you investing more than the average trip to the theater.

The Butterfly Effect

No, there isn’t about to be an Ashton Kutcher crossover. Rather, the butterfly effect is the name of the unique gameplay mechanic that further allows Until Dawn to stand out from the pack of bloodthirsty wolves. The chaos theory concept posits that even small actions, like a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world, can cause a profound and unpredictable chain of events elsewhere. The developers ingeniously code this idea into the digital realm, allowing seemingly insignificant or apparent player decisions to shape the plot and directly influence if and when your faves will meet an untimely end.

You take direct control of each character throughout different points of the game’s ten chapters, moving them through the lodge and what lies beyond as you search for clues about the terrors unfolding on the mountain. As you explore, you’ll confront an abundance of choices that splinter the narrative, ranging from dialogue options and character interactions, split-second decisions on which path or action to take, your reaction speed on the controller during quick time events (QTE), the use of specific items, and even opting not to act in certain circumstances. You will definitely be sweating the small stuff when the cutesy butterfly notification informs you that you’ve caused a ripple effect in the plot. Did I just indirectly kill some eye candy or the resident mean girl because I missed that button prompt or decided to leave the baseball bat in the cellar? Stay tuned! Luckily, for the curious and completionists alike, a menu screen allows you to browse the game’s 22 major butterfly event categories at any time, and you can view a list of every individual decision that affected each category within it. These ever-weaving threads of fate are enough to warrant multiple playthroughs to see how it might turn out differently.

Work It Out in the Remix

If you couldn’t tell, Until Dawn is a trip, but it’s one that began almost 10 years ago. Technology has gotten a facelift since 2015, and considering the game’s gaggery relies heavily on engrossing the player in its motion-captured world, it was time for some much-needed Facetune. In line with recent videogame remakes from the previous console generation, this one isn’t a retelling so much as a remodeling of a foundation that needn’t be tampered with. Unlike movie remakes that have the Internet in an uproar after changing entire characters or plotlines, every blood-battered story beat has remained in the 2024 version. Instead, the game earns its remake status because it was recreated from the ground up using Unreal 5 Engine, complete with cutting-edge photorealistic textures and VFX, reworked character models and animations, cinematic color correction, and ray tracing. Mr. Malek’s mouth no longer resembles the aliens of Mars Attacks! and the convincing gore will make those accidental deaths hit your heart even harder. I wish they had included a sprint button for when you want to get from point A to B a little faster during the walkable low-stakes moments, but that’s a minor gripe I can overlook.

In addition to sparkly new graphics, the remake includes:

● An extended cold open and slightly larger explorable environments

● A reworked opening credits sequence featuring the song “Out of the Shadows” by Mae Stephens

● An original musical score composed by Mark Korven of The Lighthouse and The Witch fame

● The original game’s DLC seamlessly shuffled into the story

● Rearranged collectibles called totems which allow the player seer-like glimpses into future events

● Performance Mode at 60 frames per second

● Total control over the game’s camera instead of the original’s outdated static camera angles

● A brand new post-credits scene that was filmed especially for the remake

Are You In?

As a horror fan, I don’t see how you’re not convinced to give a night with Until Dawn a go. It’s got everything we love about cuddling up with a late-night slasher wrapped up into one pretty gruesome package you have direct control over. The jumpscares come in droves, and if, like me, you’re always hungry for that next iconic chase scene, you’ll have to survive multiple epic sequences that’ll make your butthole clench tighter than Jason Voorhees’ fists on Mother’s Day. Watching the purposefully archetypal characters break down or buck up as they suffer at both the hands of the mountain and your skill level is also a thrill. One person in particular transitioned from someone I’d perhaps intentionally kill off to searching up gifs and memes of them online – I guess I have no choice but to stan.

Now, this isn’t a gaming site, so there’s a chance you don’t have a PS5, and understandably, the cost of entry may be too high for some. If that’s the case, I’d suggest finding your nearest and dearest with a console and convincing them to have a “movie night” for the ages. Playing as a group only adds to the excitement, and if you’ve gone through the original in the past, this might be a way to breathe some new life into your experience. Who doesn’t love being a Reaction Whore™? I’d only recommend holding off on the game if you recently played the OG, perhaps waiting until the story is less fresh in your mind and the game’s at a discount.

Franchise Potential

In case you’re unaware, an Until Dawn movie has not only been announced but has completed filming, with a release date of April 25th, 2025. Plot details are still under wraps, but Peter Stormare is reprising his role as the mysterious Dr. Hill, along with a new cast of kiddos, including Odessa A’zion (Hellraiser 2022) and Michael Cimino (Love, Victor). Director David F. Sandberg (Annabelle: Creation) has said they are not simply remaking the game’s story for the silver screen, which is a relief – who wants to watch a feature-length cutscene you’ve already experienced first-hand? Rumors have been swirling online, however, and one standout implies they may be going for a death-defying time loop scenario in the same vein as Happy Death Day. If you think about it, this could be legitimate because how else would they recreate the game’s butterfly effect mechanic as a linear narrative? And if you want to go further down the rabbit hole, don’t forget about the new post-credits scene I mentioned earlier. Perhaps the movie is a sequel to the game, set ten years later with some surprise returnees? Only time will tell, but this sounds juicy and unprecedented, and if you’ve been paying attention, that’s what Until Dawn is all about.

The title of this piece hurt to write. One of the greatest weekends of my life was when my best friend from college came to my parent’s house for the weekend to hang out. We swung by a local game shop and picked up the new release we were excited for: Until Dawn. After grabbing some Hot And Ready pizzas from Little Ceasers, and a couple of twelve packs, we went back to my place and settled in for an exciting weekend. We must have played Until Dawn three or four times; letting characters die in one run, live the next, etc.

A few years later, Supermassive Games would develop Hidden Agenda, which doesn’t get the love it deserves. Hidden Agenda, and Larry Fessenden, solidified my love for Supermassive Games. I ate up every Dark Pictures Anthology game that would come out in the following years, and The Quarry was my favorite game of 2022. In my eyes, I could never NOT enjoy a Supermassive game. (Also I was an avid Dead by Daylight player years ago, with around 300 hours logged.) When I learned that Graham Reznick (Until Dawn, The Quarry) wrote a game that Supermassive Games developed that happened to take place within the Dead by Daylight universe, I was excited. After eight hours (we’ll touch on that) I can only ask, what went wrong?

The Casting of Frank Stone takes us on an adventure through three different decades, following two groups of people. In the 80s we follow Chris Gordon (Rebecca LaChance), Linda Castle (Lucy Griffiths), Jaime Rivera (Andrew Wheildon-Dennis), Robert Green (Idris Debrand), and Bonnie Rivera (Díana Bermudez) as they attempt to film a horror movie in an abandoned steel mill. Robert’s father, Sam Green (Tobi Bakare), regularly patrols this Cedar Steel Mill due to an incident with a baby in the furnace room who was set to be killed at the hands of Frank Stone (Miles Ley). The second group we follow, set in the present, is comprised of Madi Rivera-Platt (Díana Bermudez), Linda Castle, and Bruno “Stan” Stanford III (Andrew Krueger). These three are brought to a mansion owned by Augustine Lieber (Hannah Morrish) for reasons that will become apparent all too soon. How do these two stories all come together?

You’ll have to play to find out.

If you are familiar with Supermassive games, then you’re familiar with their gameplay style. Multiple dialogue options affect relationships, which can dictate how later situations are handled; one missed quick-time event can take a character out of the story for good; collectibles scatter the map revealing deeper elements to the story; you get the drift.

The Casting of Frank Stone has every element of a Supermassive game, but it fails to hit the mark. Storywise, Frank Stone barely scratches the surface of anything resembling intriguing. Graham Reznick has proven his storytelling abilities over the years, from his video game writing, to Chilling Visions: 5 States of Fear, to his compelling show Deadwax. The story of Frank Stone feels empty for the overwhelming majority of the game and then does a complete U-turn and bombards with too much information. Reznick’s script focuses heavily on building the unique ambiance of a world that exists within the Dead by Daylight world before realizing it should try and tell an intriguing story of its own. That being said, the final moment of the game, before the post-credit scene, gave me chills. Without revealing too much, the game’s final scene makes all of the frustration and hassle worth the playtime.

Let’s discuss the playtime. A simple Google search will show an approximate playtime of six hours, which is longer than most of the games in the Dark Pictures Anthology. So why did it take eight hours for me to play this game? The answer unfortunately lies in the overwhelming amount of game-crashing, soft-locking, rage-inducing bugs. Nine different times I would have a character walk into me, or I would try and pass another character, and I would *somehow* clip into the other character, rendering movement impossible. My PlayStation 5 froze multiple times during various scenes, which forced many unsafe PlayStation shutdowns.

The worst time this happened was during the final chapter. You’re faced with the decision to either shoot one character or Frank Stone. When I made my decision, my game froze. Once the game was loaded back up, I was thrust into the game moments after my decision. That’s when I realized the game was moving at, what seemed like, .0001 times speed. At first, I thought this was a creative decision. After two minutes passed I realized it was not. I was stuck in a single scene of the game as it moved in mega-slow motion for over half an hour. This is just simply unacceptable. Once the scene was over, it went back to regular speed, but I had enough at that point. While I played through to the end, it was at great personal protest.

Why is every game nowadays released unfinished or full of bugs? If you expect people to pay 40 to 80 dollars for a triple-A gaming experience, it should be a triple-A gaming experience. Extensive game testing should have brought some of the bugs I experienced to light. Gamers would happily wait an extra week or two (hell, or three) if it meant we were getting a top-of-the-line experience. A bug or two is fine. Multiple experience-halting bugs that hurt the gameplay is sad. Over the past few years, we’ve learned how under-the-gun developers are. Some are forced to work insanely ridiculous hours to produce content at levels we’ve never seen before. (I’m referring to devs as a whole and not Supermassive.) One thing I appreciate about Supermassive is how I’ve never had an issue like this with any of their games before, and that’s why it hurts so much to write this.

If there’s anything I have learned from playing modern triple-A games is to expect the worst. It’s what we’ve become conditioned to expect.

As stated earlier, I have quite a few hours in Dead by Daylight and still watch tons of Dead by Daylight content. Even with the amount of information I know about the Dead by Daylight universe, I still felt left out. Whenever I read a note or saw what I knew was supposed to be an easter egg, I just knew there was a Dead by Daylight reference going over my head. It’s clear the references weren’t meant for people like me, but I still couldn’t help but feel left out. That’s not a negative critique of the game, per se, only how I felt.

Acting-wise, it’s clear who is a voice actor and who is a screen actor. People like Rebecca LaChance, Díana Bermudez, and Andrew Wheildon-Dennis have extensive voice acting credits and it shows. They are clearly the [acting] highlights of The Casting of Frank Stone. Everyone else feels like they’re reading from a script they were handed an hour before they went into the booth. Until Dawn was a diamond amongst dung, it’s one of the few times screen actors expertly transitioned to voice actors for their performance. The decision to not have a cast full of experienced voice actors ultimately hurt the game’s number one vehicle for storytelling.

The Casting of Frank Stone ended up being an unfortunate experience for someone who is a diehard Supermassive Games fan. It’s far from the worst game of the year, but there’s no way it could crack my top 10 this year. I think I would enjoy more Supermassive/Behaviour Interactive games within the Dead by Daylight universe as there are so many fun angles they can take. And with the number of licensed characters Behaviour has, who knows which horror icons we could get in the style of a Supermassive game! I hope that Frank Stone is just a stumble into what could be a great new direction for Dead by Daylight and Supermassive. That said, I’m still looking forward to purchasing The Dark Pictures Anthology: Directive 8020 day one.