Until Dawn [PS4]

[Clukos]

4 hours in and 2 dead already. Kudos for losing nobody.

You pretty much have to go into "horror movie logic". You know, when you are watching a horror movie and you go all like "WHY WOULD ANYONE EVER DO THIS?!?" this is what you shouldn't do in Until Dawn, and even if i got everyone saved it wasn't as clean as it could've been from the choices i made, i'll be replaying this to get all clues and try to chose different paths

Edit: Spoiler for chapter 9

Spoiler

and a few gifs
http://giant.gfycat.com/IndolentAggravatingAmericancrayfish.gif
http://giant.gfycat.com/KlutzySpottedAffenpinscher.gif
http://giant.gfycat.com/FirmPerfumedKarakul.gif

Can't wait to see what Guerilla will deliver with Horizon on this engine.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

2 deaths and some fingers lost. I'm sure these won't be the only losses.

I can't do traditional horror logic because there is a greater part of me that wants to explore and find the clues.

Did you solve the mystery?

 

[Clukos]

2 deaths and some fingers lost. I'm sure these won't be the only losses.

I can't do traditional horror logic because there is a greater part of me that wants to explore and find the clues.

Did you solve the mystery?

Oh yes, i found like 90% of the clues and i understand what went down in the whole story. It all wraps up quite nicely in the final chapters if you've been paying attention to clues imo. The plot is better than most horror movies I've seen lately...

 

[Clukos]

Spoiler synopsis for those who finished the game (what i got from the story):

Spoiler

• Back in 1952 there were 30 miners that got trapped in the mines up in the mountain for 26 days in complete darkness, after a point they started eating each other to survive which eventually led to their transformation into wendigos
• After the 12 remaining miners (which ate everyone else) escaped the mine they conducted experiments on them in a psychiatric facility because they displayed abnormal behavior. When the press came to cover the story they pretended that none of this was happening (they named the survivors the 12 heroes, had pictures with them etc.)
• The miners claimed they found food resources, the doctors didn't know they ate the other miners to survive, and the eventual transformation of the miners into wendigos led to complete chaos in the facility, everyone died and nobody heard from them again
• Moving forward, Josh's parents now own the mountain (and have no clue about the mines and/or wendigos), dumb teenagers being dumb plan a joke on Hannah which leads to her running in the woods and her sister Beth coming after her this leads to their death
• Josh then has to take medication and visits the analyst during the next year in order to fight his mental problems after that event. Every time we see the analyst in the game it's a hallucination created by Josh's mental illness
• A year later after his sisters death Josh calls everyone back to his parents home up in the mountain as a way of getting revenge, he plans everything to make everyone believe there's a serial killer hunting them (which is himself). Everything from creating fake old newspapers, ripped wanted posters weird lights switching on and off, staging his own death and more. Without him knowing wendigos also take part in the action (wendigos specifically hunt at night).
• Eventually his friends find out and they assume everything (even the wendigo attacks) were all him and they tie him up in a cabin.
• Flamethrower guy shows up and explains what's really going on and this is where the story picks up up until the end, in this part of the game most characters deal with live or die situations.
• It turns out that Hannah didn't die with Beth when they fell and she's trapped down there with a broken leg, initially she buries her sister and tries to wait it out. After a point, like the miners, she feels acute hunger and digs up the grave of her sister and eats her corpse, which leads to Hannah becoming a wendigo
• Later on Josh and Hannah can recognize each other and the wendigo (Hannah) doesn't kill Josh
• In the end you can have all of the teenagers dead or alive depending on your choices, if they survive they recap points of the story, or at least the parts they experienced.
• After the credits we see armed men (potentially police) entering the mines and finding Josh turning into a wendigo (his sister probably turned him into one by feeding him human flesh).

 

[specwarGP2]

do the choices you make when talking to the interviewer guy influence who lives or dies?

 

[ultragpu]

Edit: Spoiler for chapter 9

Spoiler

and a few gifs
http://giant.gfycat.com/IndolentAggravatingAmericancrayfish.gif
http://giant.gfycat.com/KlutzySpottedAffenpinscher.gif
http://giant.gfycat.com/FirmPerfumedKarakul.gif

Can't wait to see what Guerilla will deliver with Horizon on this engine.

Holy shit this right there could be used for a CG double easily. The skin shader is perfect and the level of polygon density is off the chart, need some numbers on this damn game now .

 

[Clukos]

Seems like UD also supports volumetric shadows:

Another example:

And another
http://giant.gfycat.com/LastAstonishingGroundhog.gif

I wouldn't mind an interview or a presentation on how they did all this stuff. The composition of some scenes is really impressive!

All the extra stuff from the game

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Lost another teen. @Clukos I have no idea how you saved everybody on your first play through unless you worked from a guide.

While some decisions seem obviously to me and are just about keeping a cool head and not panicking, other decisions are more arbitrary. For example, I just sneaked a look at a guide for the last chapter I just played some of decisions trees are blind luck, i.e. there are a few decisions to "run" or "hide" and picking the right one at each point makes a big difference to the fate of that particular character and the "right" decision (assuming you want the character to survive) is not the same each time.

I.e. if you always run you die and if you always hide you die and the consequence of the run or hide decisions isn't known until you commit.

I wouldn't mind an interview or a presentation on how they did all this stuff. The composition of some scenes is really impressive!

There looks to be some behind the scenes stuff in the bonus content menu option.

 

[Clukos]

Nah i didn't want to spoil my experience with a guide, i was just lucky most of the time i guess.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Nah i didn't want to spoil my experience with a guide, i was just lucky most of the time i guess.

Ok Chapter 7 just got real interesting. Major f***ing spoiler below although I guess spoiler depends entirely on your choices and play through.

Spoiler

people I thought were dead, aren't

Seriously loving this game.

 

[Gitaroo]

all of the techs are already in Shadow Falls, only thing new I see is the fur shading, best I have seen.

 

[Clukos]

all of the techs are already in Shadow Falls, only thing new I see is the fur shading, best I have seen.

Yeah I've read the presentation by guerilla and most of the tech used in Shadowfall is present in UD, one thing i noticed though is the AA technique, the game is quite clean looking without temporal ghosting artifacts, this slide is interesting from GGs presentation:

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The fur on the hood of the stranger is incredible.

Lost another teen. Four to go and one death was dumb, I was running from something and decided to take a sip of coke and that cost me a life. Brutal but I'm so glad you can't just replay the bits you fail.

 

[Clukos]

Playing through the game again and noticed something. In-game character models hold up even in extreme closeups:

They are either using tessellation of extremely high poly models or some other trick, it looks really good.

 

[Gitaroo]

one thing I know is shadow fall didn't use tessellation at all, it was all raw polygons. Dunno how hard it is to incorporate tessellation into the engine. Horizon must have use tessellation for more performance effective rendering due to its open world nature.

 

[Clukos]

one thing I know is shadow fall didn't use tessellation at all, it was all raw polygons. Dunno how hard it is to incorporate tessellation into the engine. Horizon must have use tessellation for more performance effective rendering due to its open world nature.

Guess we'll know more next year, apparently ND is also using some similar trick, could be a first party specific technique they develop and distribute across studios. Aloy also has a similar "look"

In any case, i also noticed that character relationships also affect how things pan out, one choice that was locked to me the first time through was open in my new playthrough Chapter 5 spoilers:

Spoiler

When i said to Emily to fit through the window the first time she denied because she and Matt were not in good terms, next play-through she says ok and goes ahead in the room through the window

Nice little detail!

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I just finished my first play through and lost four teens but thoroughly enjoyed it. I particularly liked the story which was better than a lot of horror movies. If you're paying attention to the clues most of the why, what and how is explained in chapter 7 but with some minor and major details filled in through the remaining chapters - that and staying alive.

For me this game nails creepy in the way that no game has since first two Resident Evil games on the PlayStation. Plus the characterisations were great. Some characters that I took an early dislike too (based on first impressions) really panned out differently.

Now I'm going to watch the bonus features behind the scenes stuff

edit: watching the bonus feature "the science of fear" and the girl with glasses who curls up into a little tiny ball.

 

[Clukos]

Ok i think i managed to spot what sort of trickery they do for geometry (at least in some cases) for the characters and objects

Spoiler

Look at that thin layer around the silhouette and how jittery it is, i think they do temporal reprojection of some sort to give the illusion that it's more round, and it works great 99% of the time and it's only noticeable in extreme closeups. It also looks like it's applied to more than characters (look at that business card for example). It also seems like they have direct control over the quality, faces get a more accurate thinner layer while legs/hands get a less accurate thicker layer. Nice little trick if it is what i think it is. After all, GG themselves said "reproject all the things":

Pretty sure this is used in U4 as well (and Horizon).

Here's something similar being used in the Uncharted 4 E3 demo

Spoiler

Notice the jittery outline in Drake's hand and clothes and some objects like the vase

Correct me if it's something trivial and i am looking too much into it

 

[London Geezer]

I cannot wait to get home from my very protracted holiday to get this game and have an Until Dawn night with my friends, as opposed to the usual horror movie night. Maybe the geekiest idea for a night ever but it sounds like a lot of fun in my head.

 

[Clukos]

Until Dawn is lots of fun, i am planning on playing the whole damn thing with friends!