Summary
According to leaks,the Until Dawn remake will cost $60 at launch, and fans are split on whether this is a good or bad thing. One side says that considering it’s a remake of a game that many people already bought in the last nine years or even played for free (it was aPlayStation Plustitle at some point and was also part of the PS Plus Classics catalogue), they can’t justify buying a full-priced remake. Especially since the original game still looks good and runs well.
But there are also people who, like me, think that theUntil Dawn remakeprice is entirely fair. I understand why people might be hesitant to pay full price for what they perceive as simply a graphical upgrade – after all,The Last of Us Part 2Remastered was available for just $10 if you already owned thePS4version. Then again,that particular remaster was also wholly unnecessaryand far more current than Until Dawn at the time of release.
Until Dawn’s Changes Matter
Until Dawn, in comparison, is perhaps one of the only PS4 games that I’d argue deserves a PS5 remake. In fact, my colleague Andrew King did just thathere. Until Dawn is more reliant on its visuals than most games because of its movie-inspired style and gameplay. The expressiveness of a character’s face, the cinematography of a shot, and the movement of a character are all crucial.
The remake has upgraded and refined all of these things, and to great effect – just look at the comparison trailer. Environments and characters look much more realistic, and the outdoor scenes in particular are beautifully lit. The interior of the house actually has light now and certain scenes are now shot differently, revealing different things about characters. There’s even a whole new musical score. You can also use a third-person camera to explore enhancedandnew locations with “new interactions and collectables”,according to a PlayStation blog post.
Remasters and remakes are different things, and Until Dawn is definitely a remake, rebuilt in Unreal Engine 5. While it isn’t changing its signature, iconic mechanics a great deal, judging from the trailers and blog post alone, it does seem to look and feel different enough that it deserves to be treated as a full game, and priced accordingly. This is far more than a new coat of paint.
That said, I’m still hesitant about the reason the remake exists at all. While it’s true that the Until Dawn remake is not a remaster disguised in a big coat, itisstill a PS4 game that runs just fine, and was remade to boost hype for theupcoming Until Dawn movie adaptation. After all, what better way to drum up hype for a game adaptation than to rerelease that game with an unprecedented level of graphical fidelity, evenmorecinematic shots and a harder tilt towards full photorealism?
The inclination to remake old media instead of focusing on newer projectshas bled into not just games, but films, and while Until Dawn’s remake does do a lot to improve the experience, that’s still time and money that was put into making a game prettier instead of funnelled towards making something new. The same goes for its adaptation – instead of channelling those resources towards new IPs, we’re getting a movie about a game that intentionally plays like a movie. Is this the bad ending where creativity dies?
Until Dawn
WHERE TO PLAY
Until Dawn is a remake of the hit horror game for PS5 and PC, featuring updated visuals, lighting, and new content using the power of Unreal Engine 5. It follows five people stranded in a ski lodge, who find themselves hunted by a terrifying killer.
