5 Best Video Games Like Until Dawn

Though narrative-driven horror games have dominated the genre since its early text-based days, the 2015 title "Until Dawn" took those sensibilities to the next level. Developed by Supermassive Games, "Until Dawn" follows a small group of young adults vacationing at a lodge on the remote Blackwood Mountain. Wearing its horror movie influences prominently on its sleeve, the game has players make narrative choices and perform quick-time events and third-person exploration as the group is beset by monsters. Depending on the players' actions, the story unfolds in extensively different ways, including the death of playable characters and multiple endings.

Critically acclaimed and a sleeper success, "Until Dawn" is far from the only narratively driven modern gaming experience worth checking out. There are also a number of other horror games that utilize similar mechanics and scope in telling their own scary stories. And "Until Dawn" is far from the first game to blend horror-tinged stakes with story-centric gameplay to great effect. Here are the five best video games like "Until Dawn," to keep the narrative-driven thrills coming.

French developer Quantic Dream has been making interactive story-driven games for years, gaining widespread recognition for its 2010 PlayStation 3 title "Heavy Rain." A moody crime thriller, the game is set in an atmospheric American city terrorized by a serial killer known as the Origami Killer, who leaves origami figures by their victims. The game has players control four different characters linked to the murderer, each with their important role to play in identifying them. This includes gamers playing as the bad guy themselves, providing a dark perspective to the murderous thriller.

"Heavy Rain" feels like an evolution from the point-and-click games that formed the foundations for narrative titles in the genre's early days. While the quick-time events that dictate key moments of the game may seem laughable in retrospect, they also presage their similar usage in "Until Dawn." The game also features multiple endings and the possibility of playable characters dying across the story if players aren't careful in how they proceed. An engrossing thriller fueled heavily by its unsettling atmosphere and haunted characters, "Heavy Rain" is a fun foundation for the games that followed.

Though not a horror story like the other titles on this list, one of the best games with a similar gameplay style as "Until Dawn" is 2015's "Life Is Strange." The first game in the series follows Max Caulfield, played by actor Hannah Telle, who discovers that she has the power to rewind time. Max uses her newfound powers to defuse crises around the community, but learns that this comes with its own set of repercussions to the timeline. Max and her best friend Chloe Price (Ashly Burch) investigate the disappearance of their friend, putting Max's powers to the test along with her moral compass.

Both a coming-of-age teen drama and a sci-fi story with thriller elements, "Life Is Strange" is a beautifully intimate story-driven adventure. The game's cast thoroughly brings the web of interpersonal dynamics to life, which plays a key role in determining the heartbreaking choices that players must make. After the successful reception to the first game, a line of follow-ups emerged, both directly linked to the original game's narrative and others that are standalone. While generally lighter in tone, "Life Is Strange" delivers some absolute emotional gut-punches that no other game on this list can match.

It would be easy for this article to consist entirely of games from "The Dark Pictures Anthology," but for the sake of variety, we're grouping them together in a single entry. Developed by Supermassive Games, this line of titles replicates the horror-fueled interactive story experience that they employed with "Until Dawn." True to the series' title, each entry in the franchise features a different standalone narrative that unfolds based on the players' choices. Entries include the survivalist thriller "Man of Medan" and the wartime supernatural horror story "House of Ashes."

Starting in 2019, "The Dark Pictures Anthology" is Supermassive Games' true heir apparent to the legacy it created with "Until Dawn." Uniting these stories is the anthology's enigmatic curator, serving as a sinister host to the standalone tales that have been included in the series. Each title offers enough variety to have them stand out from one another while retaining the core gameplay and horrific tones that the franchise is known for. With Supermassive Games still producing titles for the series and reinventing what it can be, "The Dark Pictures Anthology" provides gamers with thrilling tales of the macabre to immerse themselves in.

Supermassive Games teamed up with 2K for the 2022 interactive horror game "The Quarry," a spiritual successor to "Until Dawn." The game follows a group of teenage camp counselors during their last night at Hackett's Quarry, where the camp is located. While throwing a party to close out the summer, the friends learn that the surrounding area is crawling with voracious werewolves. The group try to survive the night and avoid being turned into lycanthropes themselves, while discovering the history behind the quarry's dark secret.

Even more so than "The Dark Pictures Anthology," there are clear thematic connections between "The Quarry" and "Until Dawn." Most saliently, both games center on a group of young adults whose interpersonal drama directly affects how they face the supernatural terror trying to claim each of them. Bringing this hairy, scary story to life is an all-star cast, including several seasoned horror veterans. If "Until Dawn" is a spooky wintry chiller, "The Quarry" is the summertime fright fest, with both serving as great complements to each other.

One of the longest-running asymmetrical online horror games around is Behaviour Interactive's "Dead by Daylight," which lets gamers play either as survivors or a variety of merciless killers. Set within the world of "Dead by Daylight" is the 2024 single-player spin-off "The Casting of Frank Stone," developed by Supermassive Games. The title is primarily set in an Oregon town in 1980, as a group of amateur filmmakers make a horror movie based on an infamous murderer from the town's history. While filming at the abandoned steel mill where Frank Stone (Matt Mordak) committed his crimes, the team accidentally unleashes a dormant evil that makes them part of the renewed story.

Even for those who aren't familiar with the lore of "Dead by Daylight," "The Casting of Frank Stone" is perfectly accessible. True to its franchise, this is a game that runs heavily on supernatural horror atmosphere, quickly dialing up the stakes as the true scope of its narrative comes into focus. Like "Dead by Daylight," the game's horror movie influences are clear from the outset, making it especially rewarding for fans of the genre. A spooky expansion of the "Dead by Daylight" universe that also stands perfectly fine on its own, "The Casting of Frank Stone" delivers the usual horror thrills with its own flair.