TheUntil Dawnremakehints that a sequel to the nine-year-old horror game may be on the way. That would be an interesting turn of events because, nearly a decade later,Supermassivehas done everything but a straightforward sequel to its breakout hit. Maybe it took remake developer Ballistic Moon stepping in to actually return to that world in a major way.
Supermassive Has Avoided Following Up On Until Dawn’s Sleeper Success
Until Dawn was a sleeper hit at launch.Sonydidn’t seem to expect too much from Supermassive’s ultra-realistic horror riff on aTelltalegame, but the game brought in a steady audience through YouTube reaction videos and a flexible narrative that made playing with friends a joy and encouraged repeat playthroughs. Nine years after release, it routinely earns a place on lists ofthe greatest horror games of all time.
Despite Supermassive continuing to work steadily in the horror genre ever since, it has never returned to Until Dawn for a proper sequel. I say ‘proper sequel’ because the follow-ups ithasmade represent a deeply strange, and sort of admirable, response to its success. Essentially, the studio has made Until Dawn sequels in all but name, while its actual Until Dawn successors have refused to give fans anything approaching what they actually want.
A year after Until Dawn, Supermassive launched the VR spin-off Until Dawn: Rush of Blood. It featured some locations from the original game, but traded in Until Dawn’s character-focused narrative horror for… an on-rails light gun game. The studio stuck to VR for a largely forgotten puzzle game called Tumble VR (released the same day as Rush of Blood), and then returned to Until Dawn-style mechanics with Hidden Agenda. The mystery game offered similar mechanics, but a completely different vibe, as this one starred a homicide detective and a district attorney working on a serial killer case.
The next year, Supermassive again returned to Blackwood Mountain with The Inpatient, a VR game thatagainrefused to give Until Dawn’s fans what they wanted. The game was also just two hours long and focused on first-person survival horror rather than narrative frights. It was a prequel to Until Dawn, so more worthwhile for completists than the hallucinatory rollercoaster of Rush of Blood, but it very much was not Until Dawn 2.
That year, Supermassive released two more VR games, Bravo Team and Shattered State, both of which made little impact.
The Games That Are Until Dawn 2 In All But Name
Shortly after that, Supermassive pivoted in a fascinating direction— with mixed results — withThe Dark Pictures Anthology. The series was announced with the plan that it would eventually comprise eight entries in a wide variety of horror genres. These games felt like Supermassive saying, “You want Until Dawn, we’ll give you Until Dawn,” but with an anthology twist that allowed for (generally) shorter runtimes, lower production costs, and an opportunity for the horror fans at the studio to explore the full breadth of the genre. I didn’t play all of these games, just the first two. I enjoyedMan of Medan, despite it being pretty janky, and thoughtLittle Hopewas deeply mediocre. I’ll eventually catch up with the others, but even if I don’t like them all, I respect Supermassive for trying something different.
WithThe Quarryin 2022, Supermassive finally made a “spiritual successor” to Until Dawn, but it wasn’t anactualsuccessor. It’s as close as the studio has come to sequelizing its original hit. But, while Until Dawn continues to lay fallow, the studio is working on a sequel to another studio’s game withLittle Nightmares 3(though Supermassive did handle the previous entry’s console ports). Supermassive is a strange studio and, though I’m eager to see if an Until Dawn sequel comes to fruition, I respect its willingness to zig when everyone expects it to zag.
