Until Dawnhas always been an incredibly blue game. Even when it was in development as a PlayStation Move title on thePS3before being completely rebooted bySupermassive, it had a distinguished visual identity of dominant blues and whites that deliberately washed out any signs of crimson blood that spread across its unfortunate cast.
It was an aesthetic choice that worked wonderfully given the early slasher movie inspirations, like Halloween and an isolated rural setting covered in a thick blanket of snow that its characters couldn’t escape. Blizzards trapped people inside, hid monsters from view, and instilled a sense of paranoia in the player that they would never be able to escape this morbid winter wonderland. The remake rips this aesthetic away in favour of increased realism and fidelity, and I can’t help but feel it was the wrong decision.
The Until Dawn remake launched forPS5andPCearlier this week, and the majority of press weren’t given access prior to its release. This is seldom a good sign, especially for Sony who is normally pretty confident and upfront about its first-party releases. One glance at Twitter is enough to know that this revival is buggier than the original release, and in some cases, can look and feel worse to play. Goodness knows how, but they managed it.
Characters and environments are more detailed in a lot of instances, but improvements like this are tough to appreciate when such a stark change in lighting tears away all the original intention. In some cases, faces on character models can look larger and almost comical, and impressions that were once subtle in a darker spotlight are now cartoonish and exaggerated.
they did my girl so dirtypic.twitter.com/tXN5sopfD8
— oth (@emmasriley)June 21, 2025
The pause menu in which you can observe the constantly moving face of whatever character you are playing, is a perfect way to take a look at certain members of the cast. Some are not suffering too much, but characters like Jess lookterrible.
Previously, the camera zoomed into the intimate facial expressions of each character, framing their eyes and mouth inside a small window so you could essentially use it as a way to gauge how they are feeling when it comes to risky situations. That intention is lost in the remake.
The remake gives players the option to turn off the letterboxing present in the original, but instead of reframing the aspect ratio to 16:9, it simply removes the black bars before it zooms into the image.As a result, you see less of the action, and it’s harder to play.
As the game begins and the cast arrives at the winter lodge, they will spend the harrowing night to come, the sun now sets from behind them and washes the entire scene in a bright orange hue. Before, the blue that dominates the entire experience was already present. It’s easy to see what the remake is trying to do here by introducing a gradual sense of dread as darkness begins to take over, but when the end result is pitch black with little stylistic flair, what’s the point?
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eaterhas come under fire for similar reasons. Much of the remake looks incredible, with photorealistic visuals helping the jungle environments and character models look better than ever. Big Boss will even sustain injuries throughout and it’s possible to see these wounds develop and heal in cutscenes across the campaign.
This sort of advanced visual simulation is very impressive, and hints towards a game that is going to look and feel amazing to play when it launches. But yet again, when you compare it to the original experience, something vital is lost in translation. The original Snake Eater is drenched in an omnipresent green and brown hue that rarely subsides, taking clear influence from classic war films like Rambo: First Blood, Apocalypse Now, The Great Escape, and so many other pillars of film culture that Hideo Kojima was obsessed with at the time.
Until Dawn was likewise inspired by horror icons such as Evil Dead 2, The Exorcist, Halloween, and Poltergeist, and that could be felt throughout its colour palette.
You could feel that love for cinema bleeding through every frame, with Kojima making many deliberate decisions on framing, shots, colour, and goodness knows what else because they all contributed to his overall artistic vision. Metal Gear Solid Delta leaves most of these fully untouched, yet changes the visual makeup to an extent that it feels strangely alien at times.
Looking visually realistic and presenting the utmost fidelity isn’t the same as looking iconic or memorable, and that’s something a lot of modern remakes and remasters seem to forget. It’s indicative of triple-A gaming’s obsession with higher budgets and photorealism, and the mistaken belief that unless a game is pushing graphical capabilities as far as they can possibly go, it’s a failure.
If we keep trying to improve upon games we already have by improving how they look, we’re never taking time to appreciate what we had to begin with. Until Dawn and Snake Eater have been reacted to in such a way, because while the remakes might look good on the surface, if you dig any deeper, what’s lost becomes clear to see.
Until Dawn
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Until Dawn is a remake of the hit horror game for PS5 and PC, featuring updated visuals, lighting, and new content using the power of Unreal Engine 5. It follows five people stranded in a ski lodge, who find themselves hunted by a terrifying killer.
