Until Dawn is a 2015 interactive survival horror game developed by Supermassive Games in which players can assume the characters and decisions of eight teens with faces who have frequented the big screen including; Rami Malek, Hayden Panattiere, and Jordan Fisher etc— faces we know and love. Therefore, the connection to these characters is heightened.

I mean, who doesn’t want to play through life threatening scenarios as their favourite actors?

For those who don’t know the story, as someone who has just recently done a play through it’s fresh in my mind. The story follows a set of twin sisters who invite their friends to their cabin on Blackwood Mountain in which a cruel prank is played on one of the twins (Hannah). This causes her to run into the woods with her twin (Beth) following closely behind. Due to a series of events the twins end up falling off the cliff and their bodies are never found. Cut to a year later, their brother invites the original group to celebrate an anniversary of their deaths (a morbid party if you ask me). You play as all the characters in which all actions have a butterfly effect and either all or none can survive against the Wendigo’s advances due to the player’s decision.

The game is essentially a love letter to the horror genre.

Each character has a ‘role’. The notorious roles which are a staple in the horror genre are also seen within the game. In fact, each role is perfected to a T. You have the ‘The Whore’, ‘The Jock’, ‘The Geek’, ‘The Bitch’, ‘The Final Girl’, ‘The Good Guy’, ‘The Antagonist’ and ‘The Academic’.

Surprise, surprise— the Whore is usually the first one to go, just like Jessica who is attacked first in the game (I mean excluding the twins). The Final Girl, Sam, is also one who coasts through where all actions and options lead to her survival except from the very last moments…

Subverting the overdone trope of the Final Girl, Sam’s plot armour fades away at the last moments in which her (frankly grotesque) death can be witnessed.

So, what to do if even the Final girl is dead?

The classical trope therefore is so warped that when someone is dead in the game, they stay dead- unless you just reboot the game I guess- but the sentiment stands.

Therefore, the player and the game actually influence what tropes are felt in full fledge. Your personal perception of what horror even is sways your game play and determines whether or not they will even appear in your play through. Will Sam be the Final Girl and ultimately fulfil her role or, lay flat on her face dead in the last few seconds? You decide. You play into their hands (and their lives).

Photo by PCGamesN/CC BY https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/