How Until Dawn: Rush of Blood on PS VR will keep you coming back for more

Hi, my name is Simon Harris and I am the Executive Producer here at Supermassive Games. I’m back today to talk a little more about Until Dawn: Rush of Blood and what you can expect from the game.

One of the first things that hits you when you try PlayStation VR for the first time is that the experience of playing a game in this way is completely unlike anything you have seen or played before. The fact that you are immersed into a game world, and get to interact with it on what feels like a personal and intimate level, is quite incredible.

With Until Dawn: Rush of Blood being a horror title, this immersion also operates at a second level – triggering your fear and adrenaline to provide an incredible rollercoaster ride.

We know you’ll love your first playthrough of the game then, but what about replayability? You’ll be pleased to know this was a key consideration in our level design. We wanted to craft an amazing initial experience and then ensure we had plenty of aspects to each level that reward and support players who come back to the game time and time again. And how did we do this? Scoring, secrets, routes and skill levels.

Firstly, scoring. Each time you play through the game or level, the player is awarded scores for shooting targets and enemies. When you reach the end of the level you are given a rating and score breakdown. You are also rewarded with points for accuracy and any multi-kills (getting more than one enemy with a single shot) you achieve.

During the level, hitting valid targets adds a level to your multiplier, which is shown in the centre of your cart during the game. As you hit enough targets it rises up to a maximum of 8x. If you stop shooting things it starts to drop down and resets completely if you take damage. So there is definitely a way to maximise your score.

These scores are stored in our online leaderboards, so you can see how you are doing against the best players in the world as well as your friends.

The second aspect is our secrets. In each level there are a number of hidden clown collectibles to be found. These are hidden away in the levels and reward the player with points for finding them. There is also a single mystery item in each level, which when the player focuses on it, will provide a short story sequence and then reward the player with points at the end of the level.

The third is routes. In each level, there are a number of branching routes to be taken. Some of these are obvious and some are very well hidden. Each of these alternative routes will present you with hidden secrets, more scoring objects or additional information about the world.

Finally, we have our skill levels. The game and each individual level can be played at one of our four skill levels. Each of the first three presents an increasingly difficult challenge, but the final mode is the ultimate test of your gaming ability. The Psychotic mode is the most difficult level and only allows you a single life – so there is no restarting. Are you capable of completing this challenge and unlocking the ‘true’ ending for the story?