Games Similar to Until Dawn (For People Who Already Played Until Dawn)

The first time I played Until Dawn, I saved everyone. The second time I killed Mike on the cliff in chapter two on purpose to see what the game does without him, and the game did everything without him. That’s when I knew Until Dawn was different from anything else I’d played.

This post assumes you’ve finished it. Maybe twice. You know the Butterfly Effect screen. You know what happens when you don’t separate the killer’s tools. You’re not here for a primer. You’re here because Until Dawn ruined other games for you and you need something to play.

Here’s what I’d hand you.

The Quarry

The big-budget Supermassive successor. Summer camp instead of mountain cabin. Same DNA — eight teens, branching paths, characters who can die — refined with five more years of craft. The opening forty minutes lean a little hard on summer-camp tropes, but the third act earns it. If you finished Until Dawn last week, The Quarry is what you play this week.

The Dark Pictures Anthology

Four entries from Supermassive — Man of Medan, Little Hope, House of Ashes, The Devil in Me. Each is six to eight hours, each is its own contained story, each uses the same branching architecture you know from Until Dawn but applied to smaller casts (usually five characters). Think of these as Until Dawn’s anthology format — short stories instead of a novel. Watch the post-credits stinger at the end of each one. They’re connected.

If you have to start with one, start with Little Hope. The ending is the strongest of the four.

The Casting of Frank Stone

Supermassive again. 2024. Set in the Dead by Daylight universe but standalone — you don’t need to know the lore. Tighter than the anthology games (about six hours), with a dual-timeline structure (1980 / present day) that’s the most narratively ambitious thing they’ve done. The Casting of Frank Stone is the game I’d most recommend to someone who finished Until Dawn and wants to see where Supermassive’s craft has gone.

Detroit: Become Human

Quantic Dream, 2018. Three protagonists, branching paths, the most generous flowchart visualization in the genre. Detroit is sci-fi rather than horror, but the mechanical kinship to Until Dawn is exact — characters can die at any point, the game accommodates, your second playthrough sees branches you didn’t know existed.

This is the most respectful choice-driven game I’ve played, because at the end of every chapter it shows you what you missed. Until Dawn’s Butterfly Effect screen is a less-detailed version of the same idea.

Heavy Rain

The grandfather. 2010. Four playable characters, a kidnapping mystery, choices that can kill any of them before the credits. The controls have aged badly — David Cage’s insistence on motion-control QTEs makes parts of the game frustrating now — but the structure is still ahead of most things being made. Play it on PC and rebind the controls. Accept the goofy writing as part of the package.

As Dusk Falls

INTERIOR/NIGHT’s painted-frame visual approach is divisive. Some players bounce off the still-image animation. Mechanically, though, this is the closest thing to Until Dawn that isn’t Supermassive. Two families, decades apart, choices that span generations. Up to eight players can play together. The social multiplayer mode is the closest anyone has come to capturing what makes Supermassive games great in a room of friends.

Beyond: Two Souls

The middle Quantic Dream sandwich (between Heavy Rain and Detroit), and honestly the weakest of the three. But — if you’ve finished everything else on this list and need one more — it’s the right kind of weak. The structure is interesting, the cast is good, the choice mechanics are doing real work. The script is uneven and the Willem Dafoe sections are better than they have any right to be.

If you’re a completionist, get this. Otherwise skip.

The lineage explained

Until Dawn isn’t just a one-off. It’s a structural answer to a problem the games industry has been working on since at least 1995’s Phantasmagoria — how do you make a movie that lets the audience drive without breaking the cinema. The answer Supermassive landed on is fixed cameras + QTE + permanent-death branches + characters who get attached enough to you that you care if they die.

Every game on this list is doing some version of that answer. The Quarry, with more polish. The anthology, in tighter portions. Heavy Rain, with more sophistication. Detroit, with more transparency. As Dusk Falls, with painted frames. They’re all the same conversation.

What I’m trying to add

I’m a solo developer working on The Bone Game, a cinematic horror game in this same lineage. Six teenagers, a Friday night, a story told from a treehouse. The treehouse is the framing device — every story is told by one of the six to the other five, and the choices you make as the narrator change what the listeners experience. It’s Until Dawn’s branching structure with a frame story bolted on.

If you’ve finished everything on this list and you want to be part of the next thing, you can put The Bone Game on your wishlist. The next post in this comparison ladder is Games Like Until Dawn — same neighborhood, slightly different angle.