Review of “Before Dawn – Visual Remake”

It’s been 9 years since the release of the PS4 exclusive Until Dawn, the “interactive horror film” that made British studio Supermassive famous and launched a series of games in this style, which they continued with the anthology The Dark Pictures, the standalone game The Quarry and the recent Casting Frank Stone” from the world of Dead by Daylight. Some games were more successful, some less so, but the studio was never able to fully replicate the huge success of Until Dawn. So it’s no surprise that Sony, as the owner of the rights to the brand, has returned to the game and commissioned new studio Ballistic Moon to create a last-gen remake of this classic, which is currently in production. But is it worth it?

• Platform: PC, PlayStation 5 (tested version)
• Release date: 04/10/2024
• Developer: Ballistic Moon
• Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
• Genre: Interactive film, horror
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: No
• File size: 58 GB
• Game time: ~9 hours
• Price: 1699 CZK (Alsa)

How do you know this

I would start with a story that only had a few changes. Don’t expect a spectacular Resident Evil-style remake of Until Dawn, but rather a purely audiovisual remake. The only major additions can be found at the beginning in the form of a slightly extended prologue, which is also not very good, and on the contrary, a very interesting ending, which seems to be tempting for a sequel, which has been speculated about.

Source: Jan Urbanczyk/Zing.cz

Source: Jan Urbanczyk/Zing.cz

Source: Jan Urbanczyk/Zing.cz

Source: Jan Urbanczyk/Zing.cz

Source: Jan Urbanczyk/Zing.cz

Source: Jan Urbanczyk/Zing.cz

Source: Jan Urbanczyk/Zing.cz

Otherwise the game is almost 1:1 like the original. Of course, this is not a bad thing, the story works well even after years and decisions play a big role here. But if you have already played the original game, then you won’t find much new in terms of plot here.

Impressive audiovisual effect

Of course, the visuals have undergone a big change. The developers relied on Unreal Engine 5, thanks to which the lighting looks simply great. Since Until Dawn takes place most of the time at night, and most of the lighting is simply flashlights, candles, and other smaller light sources, the quality of ambient lighting, shadows, and volumetric lighting stands out even more.

Even in terms of general details, the game has nothing to be ashamed of. The objects that fill the environment are of high quality, as are all textures, materials, and even hair. The snow simulation also turned out to be very successful, mainly the tracks on it when the character walks through thick snow, as well as other visual effects.

Overall, this is an extremely impressive game in terms of graphics, thanks to very good image quality. It’s not perfect and there is some distortion, but the image is much cleaner than most modern games.

On the other hand, it must be said that the visual component is not entirely without its shortcomings. While the new character models are good in many ways, some of their proportions look a little odd, especially Jessica in the prologue where she looks downright bizarre. Anyway, the bigger issue is the facial expressions and general animation of the characters.

As the developers have confirmed, they used motion capture data from the original game for the animations in the remake, which causes some animations to become very choppy. The original voices were also used, but that’s no problem, the acting in the original was great.

On the contrary, what is new here is, of course, the successful use of the DualSense controller. While it doesn’t reach the level of something like Astro Bot, haptics plays a significant role here and greatly enhances the experience. Adaptive triggers are used quite lightly here, but that’s understandable given the style of gameplay.

Supermassive fans will likely be disappointed that the opening sequence will not feature the iconic O’Death song, which the British developers also feature in The Dark Pictures Anthology. It’s possible that Sony simply lost the rights to the songs from the original, since the soundtrack is completely new. And this is actually not bad at all; personally, I really like the new musical theme. It’s just something significantly different from what we’re used to in the original.

Available to everyone

In any case, the important thing is that the improvements affected not only the audiovisual part, the developers also paid a lot of attention to quality of life improvements, of which there are many, but mainly the camera. While in the original game she was completely static or moved only a little in many parts, the remake uses a modern third-person camera in most scenes, which makes the game much better. You can still sometimes find a static camera here, as a kind of tribute to the original.

So this is an improvement that everyone will feel, but there are a number of options in the menu. These primarily concern accessibility, mainly various amenities for people with disabilities, including, for example, reading menu items for blind players. Almost all players will appreciate the very detailed options for quick time events, which may be frustrating for some. Here you can specify exactly how you want them to behave so that they look the way you want them to and don’t make your experience unpleasant. There is also a dialogue history.

Big step back

I’ve gotten a lot of praise so far, but I haven’t mentioned one very serious negative, namely the frame rate. While the original Until Dawn ran on PS4 unlocked (meaning it was aiming for 60fps, but the framerate was quite unstable), the PS5’s performance was able to match the framerate, and the game actually ran stable at 60 most of the time. frames per second. But the remake is locked to 30 frames per second and you won’t find an alternative performance mode.

Yes, the image quality is many times better than in the original, which only works in Full HD, here it is full 4K, but still the lack of a 60 FPS option is surprising when in the original game it was already the basis of the PS4. Regardless, it could still be chewed up, but unfortunately the performance issues don’t end there.

The 30fps lock, like many other games, is poorly done and the framerate is inconsistent. In other words, some frames appear longer and some shorter, so the smoothness of the image doesn’t make a consistent impression. In the later stages of the game, especially in large areas, you will also encounter the old familiar stuttering while passing, which can be quite significant and spoil the overall experience. Moreover, when he appears not only while moving, but also in cutscenes and QTE passages.

The situation with the aspect ratio is also strange. The original had a classic 16:9 aspect ratio, but for the remake the developers decided to go with a “cinematic” aspect ratio of 2.39:1, so if you don’t have one, you’ll have significant black bars at the top and bottom. There is an option to switch to 16:9 mode, but it works in such a way that the image is enlarged and the field of view is significantly reduced. So I played most of the game in 2.39:1 aspect ratio, which is also recommended by the developers.

2.39:1 vs. 16:9

Finally, I should add that I could not avoid several mistakes, for example, when during a cut-scene the camera almost had an epileptic seizure, or when my character began to roll on the ground at high speed instead of walking. One day the game crashed completely, fortunately there are frequent autosaves. In any case, several players are complaining about crashes, and it is quite possible that I got very lucky with this one. Technically, the game is not yet fully configured and will require several patches. The fix shouldn’t take too long, since the number of bugs isn’t that great, and it certainly can’t be said that they will make the game unplayable.

Especially for new players

As a result, the Before Dawn remake did well. The visuals are simply stunning and take the already strong atmosphere to a whole new level, and the audio and solid, if different, new soundtrack are not far behind. Story-wise, don’t expect much that’s new, so I’d recommend the game mostly to people who never tried the original, or really die-hard fans who will appreciate a few extra things. In any case, please wait a little longer before purchasing until some bugs and glitches in the game are fixed.¨