Home / Features /It might not be your fault you’re failing some QTEs in the new Until Dawn ByRichard Seagrave 5 October 20245 October 2024
The reimagining of 2015’s Until Dawn is finally here, bringing new life to a cinematic horror classic thanks to upgraded visuals, a new soundtrack and more. I’ve completed it and will have a review soon, but until then I’ve noted an issue that caused me some trouble while playing through it — and may cause you some frustration, too. You see, basically, if you’ve had a hard time completing some quick time events (QTEs) in the game, it might not be your fault.
By default, Until Dawn plays in 2.39:1 format, giving you a truly cinematic presentation with black borders at the top and bottom of the screen. Dig into the game’s menus, however, and you can change the format to 16:9 if you wish, eradicating those black borders if you don’t like them. The trouble is how the new version of Until Dawn (available on PS5 and PC) deals with this. Instead of removing the bars and simply showing you what they would have obscured, the camera instead zooms in, giving you a narrower field of view. And that causes some issues.
You see, by default, the button prompts during QTEs appear in various locations on the screen. And so, if a button prompts appears on the far left of the screen and you’re playing in 16:9 mode, you might not see the prompt until much later than you would playing in 2.39:1 mode. That makes completing some QTEs in 16:9 mode next to impossible. It can also cause trouble with some aiming events, too.
Thankfully, there is a solution to the QTE problem other than abandoning 16:9 mode altogether. Head into the accessibility options and you can force all QTE prompts to be displayed in the centre of the screen, which means they’re always instantly visible. You’ll find other options in there, too, such as auto-succeeding all QTE events if you want an easy ride. It’s just a shame there isn’t an option to simply give you more time to complete them.
So, if you’ve failed some QTEs in Until Dawn and couldn’t really understand why, or simply feel like you didn’t have enough time, that might be the reason. Otherwise, it might just be that you’re too slow! In any case, it’s a shame this issue wasn’t spotted before the launch of the game. Keep your eye on GameSpew over the next couple of days for my full review.