Two Roads Diverged : Player Choice and Genre Analysis in Until Dawn
By Gavin Davies , Independent Scholar
Robert Frost ’ s contemplative 1916 masterpiece “ The Road Not Taken ,” with its quiet lines about paths diverging in a yellow wood , was the perfect voiceover for a twominute trailer in 2015 advertising Until Dawn , an interactive slasher film on PlayStation 4 based around choice and consequences common to the cinematic genre . The creepy spot , filmed in the wilds of Vancouver over two recent steamy summer nights , plays out like a scene from a fever-dream – or a horror flick . A young woman dashes from a cabin in the misty forest . Clearly running for her life and immensely afraid of an unseen pursuer , she must choose between two paths that wind through twisted trees . As she mulls her options , Frost ’ s words – “ And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveller , long I stood / And looked down one as far as I could / To where it bent in the undergrowth ” – take on an eerie menace . The poem becomes a kind of inner monologue to potential players , giving voice to the woman ’ s tortured thoughts as she struggles with a decision that could spell life or death .
Games ostensibly about these kinds of choice often focus instead on consequences . Examining choice and
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