Until Dawn: 10 Best Character Deaths, Ranked

Until Dawn provides plenty of grisly opportunities to kill all eight main characters but some deaths have stuck with players more than others.

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Content Warning: the following article contains images of violence and death.

Until Dawn’s gameplay ethos prioritizes consequences and decision making, making players genuinely feel like the characters’ lives are in their hands. From failing a critical QTE or one of the dreaded “Don’t Move” challenges to missing out on an important clue, nowhere does Until Dawn make good on its promise that all choices matter more than the many possible ways the main characters can die.

Until Dawn is often praised for making character deaths feel like appropriate repercussions for the player’s actions, avoiding cheap shock value without skimping on scares. While the feeling of responsibility for these gruesome consequences is especially effective, some of Until Dawn’s character deaths are more memorable than others.

10 Beth: The Beginning Of Terror

While the prank on Hannah is largely the inciting incident of the game, Beth’s death is truly what causes the horrors that unfold on the mountain. Players essentially walk Beth to her inevitable death, gaining control of her for the prologue scene but ultimately unable to make any choices that change the twins’ fate.

Though difficult to catch in the chaos of the scene, Beth’s spine is broken during her fall. The scene only grows more horrifying once players find the scrawled journal later on and discover that Hannah was trapped underground with the corpse of her twin sister, ultimately eating her to survive. Without Beth’s death, Hannah wouldn’t have become a Wendigo and the events of the game wouldn’t occur.

9 Ashley: Trapdoor

Until Dawn plays on many classic horror movie tropes, sometimes expecting players to use their film knowledge to help guide their own choices in the game. Ashley’s possible death in chapter 9 plays into the typical scenario of a character splitting off from the group to investigate a suspicious noise, usually leading to their demise.

The best version of this death comes if a player unlatches the door making the noise but does not open it, leading to the Wendigo bursting through and violently decapitating Ashley–surprising players who thought not opening the door would save them. In this scenario, players are punished for behaving like a typical horror movie character: ignoring all the warning signs and turning their back on the monster.

8 Matt: Nature’s Revenge

Matt’s possible death at the beginning of chapter 6 is one of the most direct cause-and-effect scenarios of the game as well as what many players see as pretty straightforward karma. The chapter opens with Matt and Emily on the edge of the cliff with a herd of deer blocking their way forward.

The deer won’t directly harm the characters, but the player can have Matt attack with his ax rather than try to walk through them. If Matt successfully kills a deer, the herd will push him over the edge of the cliff. Matt’s death here is a direct and arguably well-deserved repercussion of his undue violence and reiterates Until Dawn’s theme of the consequences of thoughtless cruelty.

7 Jessica: Slow and Steady

One of Until Dawn’s most interesting mechanics is relying on the player’s ability to make logical inferences based on subtle (often environmental) clues, rather than outright stating the choices. One of the best examples of this comes when Jessica is carried off by the Wendigo and Mike chases after her.

While the game expects the player to realize when directing Mike’s route that they can’t waste time if they want to catch up. If Mike takes too many slow and safe options, he will not arrive in time to save Jessica; instead, he will come across her jawless corpse moments before it plunges into the mines. Her death is a grisly reminder of one of the most important lessons in the game: monsters don’t play fair.

6 Ashley: Indecision

The final scene of Until Dawn is packed with QTEs and the dreaded “Don’t Move” sections, and a simple mistake could easily kill one or more of the characters. However, while most of the character deaths at the lodge follow more or less the same scenario, a specific series of choices can land players in a unique scene with Ashley.

If the player fails a specific order of checks, they will have to choose whether to blow up the house and kill everyone or risk trying to save Ashley. However, if the player stays still, the Wendigo will attack Ashley–driving its nails into her eyes and through her skull. Sacrificing Ashley at this point is the best way to keep the other characters alive, but it comes at the cost of her dying violently due to the player’s inaction.

5 Emily: Wrong Turn

Emily is one of the most divisive characters in the game, with players finding her either mean-spirited and irritating or satisfyingly blunt and intelligent. She fits the classic mean girl horror movie niche and, accordingly, the game offers more chances to kill her than most other characters.

One possible Emily death is one of the more gruesome in the game, particularly memorable for its uniquely Final Destination-esque feel. Resulting from taking a wrong turn while escaping the factory, Emily can fall into a working ore grinder–her body getting chewed up in an impressive display of gore.

4 Mike: Pyrrhic Victory

Mike starts as one of Until Dawn’s least likable characters, a smarmy jock who instigated the Hannah prank, but his development throughout the story leads him to becoming a sympathetic and endearing figure. One of his best qualities to emerge is a genuinely selfless instinct, culminating in his potential heroic sacrifice at the end of the game.

After Sam, Mike is the character with the most chances to die in the lodge–usually choosing to sacrifice himself so he can light the house on fire and kill the Wendigos. After seeing Mike survive the horrors of the story, watching him die for the chance to end the curse of the Wendigo is one of the most emotional deaths in the game.

3 Josh

While some players find Josh’s actions in the game to be over-the-top, most agree that he has the most tragic fate of all the player characters. In both his possible outcomes he is more or less doomed, either to death or to life as a Wendigo.

Josh’s only possible death is the culmination of the twins’ narrative, occurring if the player fails to gather all of the twins’ clues. When the Wendigo attacks Josh, while it is revealed to the player that the Wendigo is Hannah, without the Journal Josh is unable to recognize his sister and she crushes his head. The Hannah reveal being confirmed to the audience, but not to Josh, moments before she kills him gives this (already impressively gory) scene an especially gruesome twist

2 Chris: Betrayal

One of the best examples of the butterfly effect mechanic, Chris’s fate in chapter 8 is predetermined by a choice made in chapter 6. If Chris decides to point the gun at Ashley during Josh’s extended homage to Saw, she will secretly resent him for it. This is the choice that dooms Chris.

This scene shows Ashley’s unexpectedly merciless side (previously only hinted at) in full effect. Coupled with an understandable bitterness over having a gun pointed at her, the player is left with Ashley coldly watching the boy she was in love with getting torn apart.

1 Emily: Headshot

Emily’s chapter 9 death exemplifies Until Dawn’s encouragement of critical thought. The player is given the choice to shoot Emily for the possibility that her being bitten might turn her into a Wendigo, which there is no concrete evidence to support.

Is it okay to kill Emily if she might become a Wendigo, even if they don’t know for certain? Is it okay to kill Emily because she’s mean, or had a hand in the Hannah prank, or because the player might not like her? Is it okay to make Mike murder another person, let alone his friend? Emily’s death is so resonant because it forces the player to directly confront killing a character– not as a result of the butterfly effect or clicking a button fast enough, but because they decided to pull the trigger.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/until-dawn-best-character-deaths-ranked/