The January 2024 SonyState Of Playshowed off multiple trailers for returning horror franchises considered by many to bePlayStationclassics.Silent Hillgot the lion’s share of this, even receiving a shadow drop for theembarrassingly derivative Short Message.
But a far more surprising trailer was the one that announced what appears to be somewhere between a remake and remaster of PS4 classicUntil Dawn. The trailer itself was light on details, but after the show, there was apost on PlayStation Blog with Ballistic Moon’s Neil McEwanthat shed further insight. The graphics have been rebuilt with Unreal Engine 5, a third-person camera has been added, and there’s even promise of new collectibles and “a new score from legendary horror composer Mark Korven.”
That Silent Hill 2 Remake ‘Combat Trailer’ Kinda Misses The Point
Silent Hill 2 has never been about the combat, so why dedicate a trailer to it in the remake?
Your Choices (Of Console) Matter
The important thing to discuss first is that I do think it’s great this game is coming to the PC market. It’s a fun game that does anincredible job of creating several branching paths for completely different narrative choices. Until Dawn is a campy slasher flick you control, it’s up to you to choose how stupidly or surprisingly sensible the characters react, and it’s possible to kill or save any number of the playable characters (aside from in the prologue). In recent years, it even reminds me of when Sony first-party games felt a bit more varied.
It’s great to see a quality game added to the PC marketplace. It’s always good for more people to get the chance to play a game, and PC players did not previously have the option.
The PS5 Needs Another FlatOut Or Wreckfest
Get Wrecked.
Scoring For Something Slightly Flashier
Anofficial blog from Neil McEwan of Ballistic Moonsheds more light on the remake. According to McEwan, “Until Dawn has been rebuilt with the latest tools and techniques. New and improved animations build on the success of the original character performances.”
All this information is good to know, as the State Of Play showcase unfortunately didn’t show too well how different the graphics would look. It took that statement and then making a side-by-side for me to even notice the character models were different. During the trailer, I’d incorrectly assumed they were exactly the same as the PS4 version.
And then there’s the other promised additions. We don’t know how many collectibles have been added, and if there are a lot more, then there’s the issue of what they do.Until Dawn’s collectibles were often outright spoilers, items you picked up to see a possible outcome to hopefully avoid causing it. Add too many of those, and things may get bloated. I’m also not sold on the added third-person camera, as the camera in the original is onlytechnicallynot third-person.
It hangs over the characters' heads, such as an older Silent Hill orResident Evil. There was a purpose to how the camera was used, how it showed not just the character but the environment or room they were in. You could see collectibles out of the corner of your eye, or the perspective would change just in time for a jump-scare or moment of tension. A third-person camera gives the player more control, and I question whether that’s conducive to a better horror experience.
There’s also a more worrying issue concerning the original music for the game. As per McEwan: “Until Dawn’s sound has undergone a massive overhaul too, featuring a new score from legendary horror composer Mark Korven.” Changing the score is a lot harder to swallow for me, it technically erases something from the original for not much of a reason.
While I don’t doubt the credentials of the new composer, it also feels like a pretty arbitrary if costly change to help justify the idea that this is something more than a remaster. I don’t recall there being problems with the original score - it was designed alongside and for the game. If I were the original composer, Jason Graves, I’d probably feel a little put out that my hard work is being erased for the ‘ultimate’ edition of the game. I just don’t really get it.
Maybe the true intent behind this remake is to build up the upcoming movie, as well as to line SuperMassive’s pockets (theofficial blog postmade sure to mention the movie at the end).
The new camera, collectibles, and score do sound like enough work was done to consider it a full remake, but none of these additions sound like they were needed for what already worked with the game. I don’t see why a full remake was needed to put another version on PS5, and I also don’t see why the original was just ported to PC. Time will tell if it justifies itself, and a big part of that will be the price, and whether owners of the PS4 game are entitled to their $10 upgrade for the PS5 version, or whether this will conveniently be deemed enough of an remake by Sony to force players to buy it anew. I suspect it’ll be the latter, but let’s wait and see.
10 Best PlayStation 4 Games, Ranked
DualShockers ranks the 10 best games for every PS4 owner — did your favorite make the cut?
