Until Dawn (Remake) Review: A PS4 Horror Classic Reanimated, but at What Cost?

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In any medium, a remake is a complicated undertaking. A conscious endeavour to produce a piece of art that already exists always inspires the question, why? It's generally accepted that the decision to remake a film or a video game comes from a place of reverence for the original work. But is that admitted reverence masking an unsaid regret, an urge to improve the style or substance or both of said work? To create is to give life; to recreate is to think about that life, perhaps in a new light. And so, the best remakes reimagine the source material rather than reproducing it purely from a place of high regard. They find kernels of truth in the original work and try and expand on it, often taking it to places unexplored the first time around.

Until Dawn is not such a remake. The recently released survival-horror interactive video game doesn't reinterpret the PS4 classic from 2015. It doesn't expand and explore the setting and characters beyond the scope of the original. And consequently, it doesn't completely justify its reasons to exist. After all, a perfectly fine version already exists, playable on the PS5 via backwards compatibility, and at no additional cost if you subscribe to PlayStation Plus. But the Until Dawn remake is also not a mere replica of Supermassive Games' sleeper hit horror game. Aside from the considerable visual upgrade, the remake comes with a few gameplay tweaks — some meaningful; others, not so much — character and story alterations, new areas and items, an adjusted camera perspective, and a new sound and score.

The value of these changes, however, are not written in stone. If you've played and enjoyed Until Dawn before, you're unlikely to find something here that will unlock a radically new experience, even if it does enhance your memory of the original. But if you've never played the definitive interactive horror title that kicked off a slew of games in the same genre, then perhaps the Until Dawn remake presents the most slick and cinematic