Until Dawn

Intense overall intensity
Highest flag: Horror & psychological — sustained dread
AdventureHorrorModern/Realistic

What's in it

Violence graphic & gore
High

Slasher-style killings of the young-adult cast: stabbings, a shotgun, and monstrous creatures maiming people, with heavy blood in death scenes.

Dark themes graphic
High

Grief, guilt over a sibling's disappearance, mental illness treated at a derelict sanatorium, and elaborate revenge.

Horror & psychological sustained dread
High

Sustained dread, jump scares, stalking monsters, and fourth-wall-breaking psychiatric interludes analyzing the player's fears.

Occult & ritual player performs occult ritual
High

Characters use a spirit board / séance to contact the dead in the abandoned sanatorium.

Language strong
High

Frequent strong profanity, including 'f***', in teen dialogue.

Substances depicted
Moderate

Teen characters drink alcohol and reference marijuana at a party.

Torture depicted
Moderate

Characters are placed in Saw-style deathtraps forcing a choice of who suffers, and a captor psychologically torments them.

Mutilation / body horror depicted
Moderate

Graphic dismemberment and decapitation occur in several characters' possible death scenes, including a jaw torn away.

Sexual content innuendo
Moderate

Suggestive dialogue and a scene where a couple begins to undress in a cabin before being interrupted.

Nudity revealing/suggestive attire
Low

A female character strips to her underwear in a flirtatious cabin scene.

Crime & lawlessness crime depicted
Low

A humiliating prank and an orchestrated fake-abduction scheme are central to the plot.

Who can reach your kid

What it is

Until Dawn is a cinematic survival-horror adventure in which you guide eight young adults trying to make it through one night on a remote mountain. Play is mostly branching cutscenes, exploration, and reflex-based prompts, with a 'butterfly effect' system where your choices decide who lives and who dies. It plays like a teen slasher film: graphic monster attacks and killings with blood, dismemberment and decapitation in several death scenes, strong profanity, teen drinking, a flirtatious partial-undress scene, and a séance. The tone is consistently frightening, with jump scares and heavy themes of grief, mental illness, and revenge.

How it's framed

The game frames its violence and scares through the lens of a self-aware slasher movie, and its branching structure ties survival directly to the player's split-second and moral decisions; between chapters a psychiatrist directly addresses the player to probe their fears and the choices they have made.

Details

Developer
Supermassive Games
Publisher
Sony Interactive Entertainment
Released
2024-10-04
Metacritic 79critic score (third-party) · out of 100

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