WARNING: There will be spoilers in this, so if you'd rather not be spoiled on the plot of Until Dawn, I'd suggest turning back.

Last week the game Until Dawn was released to fairly positive reviews and I, needing something to tide me over until Metal Gear Solid, decided to give it a purchase; after all, I like horror movies of the schlock variety so why not? Like many I was looking forward to diving into a replay to see what I could change by intentionally doing things differently or incorrectly. On my first playthrough I managed to save seven of the eight characters and I only lost the one, as it turned out, because of one seemingly minor choice. "Okay," I thought, "If a choice that small could result in a scenario playing out in different ways, surely that means that would hold true for the rest of the game."

I've since gotten the platinum of Until Dawn after three play throughs and while that might not count as seeing 'everything' I've seen enough to know that in the grand scheme of things your choices in the game mean fuck all.

Well, that's a little harsh but then again it's kind of accurate. Until Dawn is the kind of game that only works with a single play through, before you know its tricks and how little your input actually matters. It's been compared to Heavy Rain in the sense that like Heavy Rain it's a game where the story will continue on when a character dies. I don't remember much of Heavy Rain other than I thought it was not a very good game in my opinion, but Until Dawn's story does continue if a character dies but that's just because the game will only let a character die when they have no further role in the story as a whole.

Despite what you might think, your choices early on don't really determine if a character dies. For the most part characters fates are sealed based on a single choice moments before they die and not on anything else. There's a set 'kill order' of when a character can die and that order is as follows: Jessica, Matt, Emily, Chris, Ashley, Josh, Sam, Mike. The only variable is that if you're fast enough in chasing Jessica then Matt will be the first character who can die. Because of the nature of the story, the characters in the lodge are never truly in any danger - that's the twist and that's why the characters who are away from the lodge for the majority of the game are the ones who can die first. To its credit Until Dawn does do a good job at making you believe your choices have a lasting influence. They sell the butterfly effect thing hard and that generally makes the moments where, say, Mike is exploring a creepy sanatorium incredibly tense and frightening because it really does feel like Mike could run into danger at any turn. It never crosses your mind that literally nothing you do with Mike matters much at all. You can even avoid the bear trap if you want. If you hack off fingers as Mike there is no impact on the rest of the game, one character can choose to comment on it but otherwise the game continues as if everyone, Mike included, assumes Mike has ten fingers.

There are only a handful of choices that actually alter the game and one of them is one of the very first choices: by shooting the squirrel as Chris you make it impossible for Sam to escape from the psycho later. Other choices serve only to change dialog or minor interactions. If you pick the 'right' options you can get Jessica to strip to her underwear; if you let Matt confront Mike about Emily then it will be Mike and Matt who cause the group the split and not Emily and Jessica, things like that. Interestingly enough it is Matt who can have his death influenced by a seemingly minor choice. Matt can die in multiple ways which is almost unprecedented in the game. If you make it past the elk as Matt the game will suddenly put you in control of Emily. If you guessed it's because Matt could've died there, you're correct. Matt's death might possibly be the only one players get. One of the totems shows Emily giving Matt a flare gun and if you find it and give it to him Matt may very well fire it off without input from the player. In this case it becomes impossible to save Matt if you opt to save Emily instead. Matt DOESN'T fire the flare gun if you disagree with Emily's plan to go to the fire tower. That one seemingly minor choice is one that has the largest unseen ramifications. If you don't agree to the plan Matt will keep the flare gun and he can still choose to save Emily and live.

Were all the possible deaths the result of innocuous choices it would be amazing. Alas that's not the case. Jessica's comes close: if you don't take the shortcuts (or if you fail the QTEs on the shortcuts) then she'll be dead when you find her otherwise she'll be alive and the game will drop her down an elevator shaft and make you assume she dies. Early on you're tasked with picking between Ashley and Josh. No matter what you pick Josh will die. It's a false choice but it's relevant to the plot but the rest of the deaths are just as binary.

The game is not tailored around characters being able to die. It's scripted in such a way that there are no major alterations in the scenes or narrative. No matter what you do in the game Mike will ALWAYS survive until the end. No matter what Sam will ALWAYS be the 'Final Girl'. No matter what Emily will ALWAYS go to the mines. No matter what the flamethrower guy will ALWAYS die. No matter what Josh will ALWAYS be left behind. There's no variation in the story, no branching path, no different ending, nothing. Treating characters differently doesn't change the story. The story doesn't change based on who lives or dies because you can't kill a character until their scripted role in the story is filled.

Emily can't die until after her mine section because if she doesn't go to the mine then players can't discover things about Beth and Hannah. As soon as Emily is out of the mine she is 'allowed' to die, be it from failing to escape or from events back at the lodge with the others. Chris will ALWAYS be the one to go back for Josh with the flamethrower guy and once that scenario is finished only then can Chris die. Ashley will always survive until the penultimate chapter no matter what happens because that's the earliest she is allowed to die. After getting out of the mine with Emily you're never going to control her ever again because she could very well be dead. Assuming she survives the mines she exists only to inform the cast about the radio tower and the monster; but if she DOESN'T survive the mines the game has the cast meet a character who exists only to explain the monster anyway.

The game also sticks to its script regardless of your input. Sam and Mike stumble upon the place where the real killer is stashing bodies. If at that point everyone is alive there will just be one body, that of the flamethrower guy who will always die no matter what. When they find that room they freak out and cry about all the bodies. Bodies. Plural. Even if there's only the one. It would have the bodies of their friends if they were dead but even if it's just one person hanging there the characters act as if their friends are dead and hanging from a hook. What makes this worse is when Mike and Josh are going back through that very same room. Josh is distressed and in fear and says how sorry he is and how he never wanted anyone to die. Josh never met the flamethrower guy and his death wasn't Josh's fault but because it assumes that at least one of your friends is dead too the characters act like they're looking at the headless or mutilated corpses of their friends regardless of anything.

Ultimately your choices aren't changing the game much at all. Even if you fail most of the QTEs they don't result in the death of a character until they're allowed to die anyway. Go ahead and fail every single QTE with Mike or Sam (except the rock climbing ones because you'll never progress) and you'll still have them survive until the very end of the game. They have plot armor because the story requires they survive until the end with no variables whatsoever. While it is true that every character can die, it's not until damn near the end of the game when they can and they only have one or two possible deaths anyway. At one point Mike gets attacked by a monster and you're supposed to save him as Sam but even if you don't do anything Mike will simply save himself anyway.

The problem with a game like this is that the game Until Dawn wants to be would be incredibly difficult to actually make. The game doesn't account for changes because it would require the script change to adapt. If Sam or Mike were allowed to die before the end then no one would be there to save Josh. If Mike was allowed to die in the first trip to the sanatorium then no one would be there to save Sam from the psycho.

Even a game like The Walking Dead has your choices only making little splits on the linear path to the end.They have a narrative that they're telling and your choices can't or don't impact the narrative as a whole, just certain scenes you see on the road to the conclusion. The game's biggest bullet point (it's on the back of the box in big eye catching font even) is actually the weakest part of the game. Very few of the butterfly effect choices do anything meaningful. And that's a shame.

Until Dawn is a good 'one playthrough' game because it manages to sell its butterfly effect choice mechanics (if you want to call it that) while also having a great atmosphere and general tension to the game. It's when you start playing again where you start to see the cracks in the paint. Maybe the fault is on me or people like who me wanted to dive deeper, and that's fair. After my second play through I was just curious to see what would change by doing as little as possible and failing as much as possible while being an asshole while mopping up trophies and it was in this third play through where it really hit home how little my choices mattered. I killed a bird in the snowball fight so an icicle was going to fall on Jessica. "Oh cool, maybe this will kill her way early!" I thought and intentionally failed the QTE only to be met with Mike pulling Jessica out of harm's way anyway.

I'm never going to play Until Dawn again even though I like it. As it turned out it was the lack of meaningful choice that was the killer all along.