The upcoming Until Dawn adaptation has received a fair amount of negative response from diehard fans of Supermᴀssive’s landmark horror game, but certain changes to the lore may actually work to the movie’s benefit. Among fans’ complaints are the inclusion of a time-looping mechanic, the appearance of supernatural threats other than the Wendigos, and even the simple fact that the movie is a spinoff rather than a direct adaptation of the game’s plot. While not much else is known about Until Dawn’s story yet, some fans have even complained about smaller details such as the movie’s apparent lack of snow.

It’s not entirely surprising to see fans reacting negatively. Video games in general are a relatively sizable time investment, and those who have spent anywhere from 10 hours to more than 100 diving into a game’s lore naturally want to see it respected. Unfortunately, video game adaptations have been letting fans down for years. Movies such as Borderlands, ᴀssᴀssin’s Creed, Doom, and others continuously fail to capture the elements of video games that account for their popularity. In the case of Until Dawn, however, changing up the story may prove to be the film’s wisest course of action.

Until Dawn Never Would Have Worked As A Direct Adaptation

Even A 3-Hour Movie Would Have To Cut Loads Of Content

There are multiple story reasons that Until Dawn could never get away with adapting the game’s storyline directly, not the least of which is the sheer length of the game. Even experienced players will generally spend close to 7 hours on a playthrough, and the game’s cinematic nature means that most scenes are too story-heavy to be easily cut. Until Dawn director David F. Sandberg worried that any attempt at a direct retelling would feel watered down, and it’s likely that fans would have walked away from a faithful adaptation feeling the exact same way.

Even if the adaptation could manage to condense the prank on Hannah, Josh’s revenge plot, the mine’s backstory, and the multiple branching paths of the game’s protagonists all down into a 2-hour runtime without sacrificing any major story beats, there’s still the issue of casting. Putting actors like Rami Malek and Hayden Panetierre in the Until Dawn movie would necessitate aging up their characters or trusting them to convincingly play roles that they aren’t really young enough for anymore. At the same time, recasting the original characters would lead to performances that might feel counterfeit to most fans.

Finally, there’s the issue that most video game adaptations face, which is that it’s difficult for a non-interactive film to capture what makes the gameplay experience so rewarding. It might sound fun in theory to watch a live-action wolf befriend a fingerless Mike, or to watch Jess misplace her jawbone in one of Until Dawn’s most brutal deaths, but half the fun of the game is discovering the consequences of the player’s decisions. A direct film adaptation would have to lock the movie into a specific canon, disappointing fans who might have preferred one of the game’s alternate story outcomes.

There Have Been Well-Received Adaptations That Changed Established Canon

Capturing The Game’s Atmosphere Is What Matters Most

Movies like ᴀssᴀssin’s Creed might not have fared well with fans, but that doesn’t necessarily indicate a flaw in the general idea of adapting a game into an original story. Detective Pikachu was regarded as something of a unicorn among video game adaptations simply for receiving better than average reviews, and that movie took almost no story beats from the 3DS game other than the basic premise. The Sonic the Hedgehog movies have gotten better reviews with each installment, and it’s not like James Marsden and his angry sister-in-law are based on fan-favorite characters from the games.

Both examples succeeded despite deviations from their source material because they still captured the general atmosphere of the games, but it’s debatable whether an adaptation even needs to do that much. The Resident Evil movies didn’t exactly win critical favor with their altered take on the lore, but they managed to acquire such a dedicated cult following that Borderlands could have potentially landed at least one or two fans simply by casting Milla Jovovich instead of Cate Blanchett. The Twisted Metal series has a respectable fanbase as well, arguably because of its changes rather than in spite of them.

The Time Loop Mechanic Is The Until Dawn Movie’s Strongest Allusion To The Game

It’s A Reference To More Than Just The Hourglᴀss On The Game’s Cover Art

Negative fan reactions to Until Dawn’s time travel mechanic generally focus on two things. First, including a mechanic so vastly different from anything in the original game makes it feel like a different franchise entirely. Second, the game’s story choices were generally irreversible without an immediate reset or a completely new playthrough. While these criticisms are understandable, the adaptation’s time loop is still the closest thing the movie will have to referencing the game’s ʙuттerfly effect mechanic, in which seemingly inconsequential decisions such as shooting a squirrel’s face off can have a bigger impact on the story later on.

The time loop probably wouldn’t have worked in an adaptation of the original game due to the sheer amount of story that would have to be crammed in already, but it does allow this movie to capture what made the game replayable. Namely, the time loop allows viewers to potentially see alternate outcomes in which everyone both lives and dies. It certainly won’t be the same as replaying 7 hours’ worth of story to make different decisions, but it will allow Until Dawn to raise its body count and possibly reference some of the more notable deaths from the game.

The Until Dawn Movie Can Open Up New Possibilities For Future Games

Featuring A Different Threat Every Night Expands The Franchise’s Universe

One of the biggest criticisms since the first trailer’s release has been the reveal that Until Dawn’s time loop will lead to the characters facing a different threat every night. In addition to the Wendigos, threats confirmed as of the second trailer include some sort of giant creature, a ghastly woman slightly resembling the “ghost” Josh uses to bait Ashley into finding Hannah’s diary in the game, and what appear to be three separate masked figures.

Given the looming possibility of Until Dawn 2 and the fact that Sony oversaw the film’s creative process, it’s possible that any one of these threats could spin off into its own Supermᴀssive тιтle. After watching Bandai rake in profits with Supermᴀssive’s Dark Pictures Anthology, Sony is almost certain to want a piece of that pie. Establishing the existence of multiple threats within the universe of Until Dawn could easily be Sony’s way of angling for their own expanded Supermᴀssive franchise.

There will inevitably be fans who still find the Until Dawn movie’s Wendigos problematic since the game had established a specific reason for their appearance, but the trailers’ inclusions of scenes in a mine as well as pickaxes on the wall of the welcome center suggest the possibility that the film’s valley setting might lie closer to Blackwood than it first appears. But in a universe where Wendigos can exist in even one location, the possibility of additional threats hardly seems all that outlandish.