Until Dawn is a survival horror game that was released on August 26, 2015. It is set in Western Canada, and it centers around a group of eight teenagers who decide to vacation for a weekend in a cabin on Blackwood Mountain, on the one-year anniversary of the disappearance of two teenage girls, who the eight friends were acquainted with. Shortly after arriving the gang find themselves under attack by a psychopath and must attempt to survive until sunrise.

Throughout the adventure, players alternate between the eight characters, making critical decisions as the story advances which drastically affects the game’s outcome, leading to hundreds of different scenarios. Until Dawn was designed to be played multiple times as players can’t see all the content in one play through.

The main theme the game is trying to show is The Butterfly Effect. The Butterfly Effect is the phenomenon whereby a minute localized change in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere. For example, a butterfly flapping its wings today could cause a devastating hurricane weeks from now. The way the game shows this theme is through the totems and the butterflies. The totems each represent something different. Black is death, red is danger, brown is loss, yellow is guidance, and white is fortune. Throughout the game you can find these totems and when you look into them, you see clips of events that may happen. The butterflies show the choices you made on the left side and after something happens later in the game you can look back at the butterflies and see the what choice caused what consequence.

John DiPietros said, “I enjoyed the gameplay, but I didn’t really like the dialogue between the characters.” Zachary Fontaine thought, “My favorite thing was that there was so many different outcomes you could get and the suspension that you feel throughout the whole game. The thing that I disliked the most was how over exaggerated the facial expressions were.”

Until Dawn was a huge hit and is highly recommended.