Parent's Guide: Until Dawn - Age rating, mature content and difficulty

What is Until Dawn?

Until Dawn is a third person horror game set in a mountain lodge and the surrounding area. You take control of a group of eight teenagers who're spending the night in the lodge, when they realise they're not the only ones up there - and worse than that, someone's trying to kill them. The previous year two of their friends, sisters Hannah and Beth, disappeared during their stay at the lodge and their case remains unsolved. It's up to you to guide the unlucky group through until morning, with the intention of keeping them all alive. You control one character at a time, playing through chapters in which you collect clues about what happened to the sisters, as well as other events leading up their disappearance. Each chapter brings them an hour closer to dawn, and as each hour passes their lives become increasingly in danger. It's up to you to make the right decisions as you try to keep them safe throughout the most terrifying night of their lives.

What do you do in Until Dawn?

With more in common with a point and click style adventure (like Beyond: Two Souls, or perhaps Telltale's the Walking Dead), than a trigger happy survival horror game like Resident Evil, Until Dawn tests your brain more than your trigger finger. When in control of a character, it's up to you to explore the area around you, as you try to find clues, and figure out what's going on in the cabin. You may see a shiny object, which will reveal itself to be either a clue (often a photograph or newspaper clipping) or an item that may come in handy later on, such as a knife or a gun. When you're not exploring and attempting to piece together the mystery, you'll likely be partaking in what are known as "quick time events", which involve pressing the buttons on your controller (as specified on your screen) before the timer runs out. These events will largely decide whether a character gets killed, or whether they manage to escape, so you'll need to be on your toes. Similarly, at times you'll also have to make choices for the characters, such as how to respond to a question, or what direction to take when trying to escape from the unknown person chasing you, with your decisions here also having consequences. Make the right choice, and everyone stays alive - make the wrong one, and it could be game over for one of the characters, so it's up to you to think on your feet. With a branching storyline, there's no real set path here to follow - each of the characters can die, and each of the characters can survive, making this a real test of the emotions, and your foresight.

Until Dawn is a horror game, and as such, there's plenty here that parents will want to be aware of. For starters, it's a game that's been designed to make you jump, and often sudden noises might shock you, or something/someone will jump out at you. This game contains a lot of bad language (mostly f**k and s**t), and there are scenes which show partial nudity and the implication that two characters are about to have sex, but they don't actually go through with it.

Perhaps the biggest thing to be aware of here, though, is gore. There's a lot of gory violence throughout, and there can be a lot of deaths in this game, which are very graphic. For example, you may see a character having their fingers cut off, or even being cut in half, complete with grizzly screams, sound effects, and plenty of blood. Characters that have died are sometimes found mutilated later - for example if one character is allowed to die, their dead body is found with their lower jaw ripped off.

Age Ratings

Format Reviewed: Playstation 4