Until Dawn is even more fun when you turn it into a murderous competition
Every Friday, A.V. Club staffers kick off our weekly open thread for the discussion of gaming plans and recent gaming glories, but of course, the real action is down in the comments, where we invite you to answer our eternal question: What Are You Playing This Weekend?
Until Dawn
It’s been a couple years since Until Dawn, Supermassive’s cabin-in-the-woods horror game, first let players experience the fun of playing mercurial director, deciding who lives and who dies in a stereotypical cinematic setup. And while it earned its fair share of criticism for the stock characters and cookie-cutter writing, I enjoyed the way it toyed with those same conventions, allowing the player’s knowledge of horror tropes to help shape the game, giving you the option to be either earnest stand-in for the characters or sadistic strategist, playing God (and havoc) with the lives of the largely unlikeable cast. (Peter Stormare’s demented psychologist interstitials accounted for a large part of that fun, as he analyzed you in between hours of the game and chewed scenery with glee.)
But recently, my significant other and I have discovered by far a more enjoyable way to play Until Dawn: as a multiplayer melee. Following the advice of this Kotaku article, we divided the eight characters evenly between us—making sure to separate Sam and Mike, the two avatars who get the most screen time—and both committed to a single plan: Keep our own characters alive for as long as possible. Of course, this immediately opens the game up to a whole new world of competitive trickery and friendly backstabbing, as we do our best to sabotage each other’s horny young protagonists while making sure ours get through it in one piece, or at least with a minimum of body parts broken and/or severed. Not only that, but playing the long game is key, we’ve realized. Get too bloodthirsty too quickly, and someone who might play a role in keeping another of your people alive in a subsequent situation may not be there to draw fire. Playing it as a multiplayer, passing the controller back and forth as we try to survive the night up on the mountain with as many of our people intact as possible, has made for great fun, letting us each play both the noble hero and the sinister schemer simultaneously.
Best of all, it’s really come as close as any game I know to what makes the communal experience of watching a slasher movie with other people so much fun. The glee comes from being able to roll your eyes together at the idiotic would-be heroes, groaning as they make dumb decisions or childish statements, and ultimately being the ones responsible for their lives, shouting out advice (both helpful and intentionally not so much) at each other while the night unfolds. And honestly, getting to see their sessions with Peter Stormare—as they in turn witness mine—has been arguably the most entertaining of all, as we submit real-time responses to his digital psychoanalysis and watch the game adjust accordingly. That meta level of silliness, combined with the long-form strategy, has made it a go-to Friday night treat for us. We’re already looking forward to inviting two more people to join in and spread the character control even thinner.