Horror B-Movie Simulator, Until Dawn, Gets a Valentine’s Day-Themed Trailer

For Valentine’s Day, Until Dawn, the horror movie game from developers Supermassive Games, has received another trailer treatment. You can watch the video above.

Pete Samuels of Supermassive Games writes that characters couple off (“by choice or circumstance”) once they reach their isolated winter holiday spot, and that’s when the fun/danger begins. He continues:

If you’ve watched previous trailers and demos you’re already familiar with Ashley and Chris and their ‘will-they won’t-they’ friendship. One of our favorite things about this dynamic is that their relationship is not pre-defined at the beginning of the game; your choices will decide if the relationship either blossoms or wilts before the night is out. That is, if they survive.

Choice is a central tenet of Until Dawn. Your actions not only determine who lives or dies, but will also directly influence the relationships between the characters (romantic or otherwise). You will even influence how characters react to each other. If you are mean to a friend, they may or may not choose to save you later in the game. The narrative will always continue forward, adapting to your decisions throughout the game – meaning that your game will be noticeably different from anyone else’s.

The developers explained a while ago what they’re doing to ensure their game is scary.


Habituation is a problem with horror—the more, and more often, you’re scared by a particular stimulus, the less effect it has on you. To solve this problem, they do lot of user testing. “We get players in that are completely fresh to the game, so we can check that we’re still making an impact.”

Fresh meat isn’t the only quality control they have in place. They strap their testers into an apparatus that measures players’ response—”their temperature and the level of moisture in their skin.” They expound, “We’ll sit and watch the data as the person plays the game, and if we get a good spike we know we’re doing our jobs right. And if those spikes correlate across a number of separate players then we can be confident we’re on the right track.”

(Supermassive Games admit there is some sadistic glee to be had from this process.)

Check out a demo playthrough of the game here. For more information on the game, go here.

No release date is known for Until Dawn yet, but we do know the title is a Playstation 4 exclusive.

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With over ten years' experience as an editor, Dimi is Niche Gamer's Managing Editor. He has indefinitely put a legal career on hold in favor of a life of video games: priorities.


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