Ahead of its upcoming big-screen launch (and a rumored follow-up), Sony has returned to the Canadian Rockies to revisit the interactive horror experience Until Dawn from 2015, bringing a fresh take to PS5. Digital Foundry’s Canadian correspondent, Oliver Mackenzie, only had 24 hours before the game’s October 4th release to assess it. At the moment, though, the title seems to be sitting on shaky technical ground—despite a number of impressive touches in this unexpectedly thoughtful remake.
Let’s start, just as Oliver did during his appearance on DF Direct Weekly #183, with the brighter side. When you compare the PS5 version to the original PS4 build, it’s clear there are meaningful upgrades across character models, environments, and even the game’s cinematic presentation. The opening stretch has also been expanded quite a bit, introducing fresh and reworked gameplay sections that replace earlier quick-time events. On top of that, an updated third-person view does away with the original’s rather loosely followed, and sometimes fixed or semi-fixed, camera behavior.
Until Dawn’s overall visual look has also moved forward a generation, which is exactly what you’d expect when an early PS4-era project is remade for a now-mature PS5 with Unreal Engine 5. The result is higher graphical detail and effects, better lighting and improved skin textures, along with a more welcoming, warmer color palette. Still, the boost in image quality doesn’t come with a matching improvement in performance, and there are further issues that make you wonder how much QA time—and polish—went into this refresh.
- 0:00:00 Introduction
- 0:00:53 News 1: Nintendo removes Ryujinx
- 0:17:28 News 2: Until Dawn remake evaluated!
- 0:33:20 News 3: Unreal MegaLights technology demonstrated
- 0:48:26 News 4: Square Enix seeks FF16 on Xbox
- 0:57:39 News 5: Next Guerrilla game reportedly Horizon online
- 1:06:04 News 6: God of War Ragnarök receives PC patch enhancements
- 1:14:02 News 7: STALKER 2 documentary reveals war-impacted game development
- 1:22:20 Supporter Q1: Was Strix Halo designed for a new Steam Machine? Could Steam Machines match the performance of a PS5 Pro at a similar price point?
- 1:28:56 Supporter Q2: What is Naughty Dog currently working on?
- 1:35:04 Supporter Q3: Will Switch 2 support the latest UE5 features?
- 1:38:43 Supporter Q4: Can the Switch 2 compete performance-wise with the Steam Deck? Is that necessary?
- 1:42:34 Supporter Q5: The PS5 Pro hasn’t sold out, could this indicate underwhelming sales?
Some of these concerns are obvious, though the impact seems somewhat limited. For example, the 2024 remake shows noticeable problems with frame pacing—or frame cadence—in its (admittedly limited) number of pre-rendered cutscenes, making them feel off even if you can’t quite pinpoint the “why.” There’s also a film grain option enabled by default that shifts extremely slowly—roughly one-sixth to one-quarter of the intended pace, or around 10 to 15Hz—and comes across as fairly heavy and unflattering. Turning it off helps, but several other issues are baked in more deeply.
Take the game’s baseline image quality, for instance: it doesn’t look particularly impressive. The internal resolution largely matches what you’d expect from a recent Unreal Engine release on PS5, sitting at about 1440p, yet you still see a lot of aliasing—especially around hair, fur, and generally where high-contrast edges appear. (Given the game’s setting and lighting, you’re often dealing with hair, fur, and high-contrast edges.) Motion also introduces quite a bit of instability on-screen, which is genuinely disappointing.
Earlier, we pointed to performance trouble in cutscenes, and the same kind of pacing issues spill over into interactive gameplay and in-engine sequences. Frame times swing wildly, sometimes rising above and dropping below the usual 33ms target. The game sticks to 30fps, with no support for a higher refresh rate—something that’s understandable based on the genre, but still frustrating given PS5’s major strengths in GPU and, especially, CPU power compared with the PS4. (It’s possible the PS5 Pro could be used to deliver a 60fps Pro mode, as we’ve seen in other games during our time with the newer console—so maybe that’s the plan here.)
Considering the kinds of gameplay issues reported, it’s somewhat surprising that the project was remade in the first place—especially since Until Dawn remains quite playable on PS5, and the original game still holds up well for its age. In fact, the 2015 edition runs at unlocked frame rates between 50 and 60fps in backward-compatible mode on PS5, which ends up feeling smoother than the 2024 remake—even though the older version targets a lower 1080p resolution.
As Alex notes in the Direct, it’s unlikely that many of these remodeled assets would be carried straight into a sequel. That said, with an Until Dawn film reportedly in the works, Sony may simply have wanted a modern version of the game available on its latest hardware as well as on PC—and having a UE5-ready codebase for a potential follow-up also seems reasonable. No matter the reasoning behind this remake, the frame-rate problems clearly need attention.
Of course, we didn’t spend the entire 108 minutes of this week’s DF Direct focusing only on Until Dawn. We also covered a range of other updates, including Nintendo removing the Ryujinx emulator, the release of the Unreal MegaLights tech demo, and improvements to God of War Ragnarök following a recent patch, along with several supporter questions.
If you’d like to support Digital Foundry, you can keep up with our work and submit questions we can answer in the Direct—including thoughts on Switch 2 and PS5 Pro in this week’s edition—by doing so via Patreon.