Enraged ‘Until Dawn’ reactions keep pouring in, but they’re all missing the bigger picture

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The latest trailer for Sony’s upcoming Until Dawn film adaptation has brought with it a slight shift in reception. Where its debut trailer was met with vitriol for only marginally resembling the Supermassive Games hit, this one is being received slightly more positively.

And yet, the vitriol is still bubbling underneath. Among the chill wait-and-seers and those who have wised up to the fact that this film is a standalone story set in the Until Dawn universe rather than a straight adaptation of the video game, some are transfixed on how this adaptation appears to be spitting upon the game’s narrative achievements.

Screengrab via YouTube Screengrab via YouTube

Screengrab via YouTube Screengrab via YouTube

But upon examining how games and stories actually work, it’s obvious that a direct adaptation of the Until Dawn video game would not only fall at the first hurdle, but illuminate a core issue with video game narratives that the medium at large refuses to address.

Until Dawn is defined by its butterfly effect system, in which players influence the beats and outcome of the story by making choices (for instance, in a life-or-death situation, you can choose to keep your current player character safe at the risk of letting another character die, or vice versa). This is bolstered by an autosave system that prevents players from returning to an earlier save and making a different decision for a more preferable outcome.

Therein lies the problem: Until Dawn does not have an ideal outcome, because every individual variation of the story is theoretically correct, and therefore arbitrary. This is partially why a straight film adaptation of Until Dawn would never work. The value of stories lies in emotional human elements that reckon with ideas, dilemmas, and morals, primarily through character. If a character dies in a good film, the death is likely significant to the wider idea(s) that the film is trying to capture. Another character might speak a line that