Mayday, An Empath, Sensing Something Is Wrong.

Mayday, an empath, sensing something is wrong.

The Worst Possible Run of Until Dawn as Scientifically Calculated by Me

Sequel to this post aka Best Run(TM) can be found here

Many people have jokingly done “worst runs” of Until Dawn. Usually these are standard “everybody dies” runs where you kill every character as soon as possible, or you’re just trying to pick all the seemingly funny options. However, these runs are typically done without the absurd amount of game knowledge a loser like me possesses.

Armed with my awareness of Until Dawn’s intricacies, I sought something deeper than a simple all deaths run. My mission was to not only kill these characters in the most tragic way possible, but make them the worst possible versions of themselves while doing it. Fair warning, this guide will contain spoilers for the entirety of Until Dawn since it is best experienced after playing through the game at least once. You get to see a lot of dialogue exchanges that I haven’t been able to find documented anywhere on YouTube, so it’s very worth while if you are interested in that kind of thing. Here’s how I did it.

For this run we are only getting clues/interactables that are either mandatory, or give you the opportunity to lower a relationship with another character. The only exception to this is the hand you can touch as Mike in the asylum because it makes him look stupid. The characters have a tendency to discuss things they find and piece together clues, but not finding any change the cutscenes to make them look like confused and bumbling idiots completely oblivious to what’s going on.

Another thing that will make sense later is that you actually need to play some sections of the game correctly as to set up worse fates for the characters later down the line. Missing QTE’s for the most part only serves to slow the game down, but if you feel like doing so in the earlier sections of the game where the threat of danger is minimal then who am I to stop you?

Dr. Hill is kind of an odd ball and you can get kind of creative with these parts since they are mostly subjective. I personally recommend picking options that hate on animals, crowds, fearing women, etc. Pick the more selfish moral options, I recommend honesty since too much honesty can be seen as cruel. Just don’t pick charity, we hate giving to others here. When picking characters, pick Josh as your favorite since we wanna be a narcissist and Sam as your least favorite since she’s the most difficult to make a terrible person. The absolute must though is being completely unrepentant about the prank and suffering of the characters. Play it like Josh genuinely thinks they are getting what they deserve.

Anything labeled a “bonus” is something that doesn’t really effect anything, but add just that little extra flavor of awfulness. They aren’t mandatory and can be skipped if you feel they are a waste of time.

Last thing is anything marked with a * is just additional information

PROLOGUE

- Drop Hannah

Bonus: miss all QTE’s, take safe route, pick follow footprints, pick follow noise

CHAPTER 1

* You have to feed the squirrel or else you can’t progress

- Snoop in Chris’s bag as Sam to lower their relationship

- Shoot the squirrel as Chris to lower his relationship with Sam

- Explain as Jessica

* This will lower her relationship with Sam slightly while raising it with Chris, (vice versa if you pick demand) but between the two options I think explain comes off as sassier

- Threaten Mike as Matt to lower their relationship

- Protest Emily’s request to go back for her bag

* Despite it seeming sweet Matt is worried about his GF, threatening Mike actually raises his relationship with Emily so protesting will immediately put it back down

- Encourage Matt to look in the telescope as Ashley

* Snowball fight is mostly irrelevant except for this next step, deck Mike to your hearts content

- Hit the bird during the snowball fight

- Shove a snowball in Mike’s face

* The ice sickle QTE afterwards doesn’t matter as Mike will save Jess if she doesn’t push them out of the way first

Bonus: mislead Matt when he initially asks to look through the telescope before conceding afterwards, this basically lets Matt know that Ashley at least momentarily tried to deceive him and then proceeded to be a complete pushover after a little prodding

CHAPTER 2

- Gossip with Josh as Chris as worry raises their relationship

- Be unsettled when talking to Ashley as Chris since confident raises their relationship

- This is a bit hard to miss, but if you walk down (basically opposite of where Ashley is sitting) you can talk to Matt. Ask him how he Emily are doing. This will upset him since he looked through the telescope earlier.

- Basically keep telling Josh to stop being a creep when he talks to Chris about Ashley since agreeing with him raises their relationship

* Talking with Sam doesn’t have any dialogue choices

- Fight Mike as Matt (pick warn followed by attack) this will set Matt’s relationship with every character except Emily to almost zero

Now for a section I like to call Being a Horrible Boyfriend starring Michael Munroe: Part 1

- Jessica will ask Mike about Matt, I forgot what the exact option is called but you want to downplay what happened instead of being openly mad at Matt so Jessica can call bullshit on you

- Ask Jess what she remembers about the prank to be insensitive and lower their relationship

- When Jessica falls into the mineshaft, be as unhelpful and unheroic as possible, do not willingly jump down (Mike will eventually do so on his own after Jessica complains enough) to lower their relationship

- Be grumpy about the bird to lower their relationship

Back to our regularly scheduled programming

- Be mocking about Chris and Ashley as Sam to lower her relationship with Josh

- Tell Josh that “it’s weird to be back” when he tells Sam he’s glad she came

- Pick up the baseball bat while Josh is doing Josh things

- Select humorous, this causes Sam to bring up Josh’s daddy issues and lower their relationship

- Do not high five him. This doesn’t effect stats or anything but it’s about the disrespect.

* Choosing to prank him or not does not affect their relationship

- Choose to investigate the noise together since picking heroic raises their relationship

Bonus: intentionally fuck up the selfie as Mike with Jess

CHAPTER 3

- Be flippant about the spirit board as Ashley to lower her relationship with Josh

* Pick any options you want during the seance, just be sure you don’t apologize since we are unrepentant bitches

Being a Horrible Boyfriend starring Michael Munroe: Part 2

- Be angry about getting pranked

- Do not cross the bridge, instead walk down towards the camera until you discover a tree with E+M surrounded by a heart

- Interact with it, and then make Mike deny it was him and blame it on Emily in a display of toxic masculinity and lower his relationship with Jess

- Kill the deer as Mike because animal cruelty

- Go into the old shed and pick up the mask inside

- Choose scare to be an asshole (and lower their relationship)

- During the chase sequence, pick all the safe options (or let time run out prompting Jess to take the lead), and make sure not to help Jess and unlock the door instead

- Pick up the rifle near the front door and select scare to lower their relationship and be an even BIGGER asshole

- Dismiss Jessica’s insecurities, pick seduce to further ignore her emotional vulnerability, and just generally use your intuition to be an uncaring dick to lower their relationship

This ends our series of Being a Horrible Boyfriend starring Michael Munroe

- Show Ashley the letter as Chris, as being protective implies we care

CHAPTER 4

- For once we wanna be a good boyfriend as Mike and save Jessica during the chase (pick all the risky options, jump instead of shimmy, and get through the QTE’s)

* This is a setup so we can give her a sadder death with Matt in the caves

- Choose to save Ashley as Chris, this lowers his relationship with Josh and makes him bitter later on

CHAPTER 5

- Touch the waving hand. Let the intrusive thoughts win.

- Choose to pry free twice, before cutting off your fingers with the newly dulled blade to cause Mike more suffering

- Kick the dog :(

- Do not feed the dog :(

- Tell Emily to squeeze through the window as Matt, she will deny him since our relationship is low and choosing this lowers it further

- Disagree when Emily says to go to the radio tower to lower their relationship

- When Emily falls off the ledge you’re shimmying on, do nothing to help her (she’ll pull herself up on her own but be pissed)

- Get caught by the Psycho as Sam (literally just stand there)

CHAPTER 6

- Rebuke Emily as Matt to lower their relationship

- Kill the elk as Matt, but don’t let him fall off the cliff since we need him alive for now

* You cannot miss any quick time event as he’s climbing back up or he will fall to his death so be extra careful

- Do not give the flare gun to Matt as Emily to lower their relationship

- Immediately fire the flare gun so that we guarantee Emily gets bitten later (having the unused flare gun lets you avoid this)

- Be completely un-compliant with the man on the radio and do the opposite of what he tells you

- Confront Emily about her and Mike as Matt on the tower and be generally unhelpful

- Choose jump to safety both times and by this point Emily should despise Matt

- Insist you saw the ghost as Ashley to Chris to lower their relationship

- Look at the catalogue of lightbulbs in the basement to have Ashley pick up the scissors

- Have Ashley be dismissive towards the prank when talking to Chris to lower their relationship

- Be reluctant at continuing on because we hate our friends

- Enter the door which I believe is in the room with the hitlist, you’ll find a projector inside. Be sure to interact with it

- Be unrepentant about the prank when Chris comments on it to Ashley to lower their relationship

- Don’t follow Chris because splitting up is stupid and thus you want to do it

- Stab the psycho as Ashley, this makes Chris punch Josh later

- Aim the gun at Ashley first to distress her cause we’re evil

- Shoot her as Chris to lower their relationship to 0

CHAPTER 7

- Do not show concern for Mike or Jessica as Sam after getting rescued as this will raise her relationship with them, focus on factual choices like asking how he got there and such

- Play through Emily’s section normally, just be sure to continue not getting unnecessary clues

- Dismiss Josh as Chris to lower their relationship

- Be angry with Josh as Chris to lower their relationship

* Because we chose to save Ashley over Josh, he will antagonize Chris here and further lower their relationship

- Hit Josh and Chris with the plywood to lower his relationship with Josh and lose Mike’s respect

CHAPTER 8

- Survive the encounter with the wendigo as Emily so we can give her a more tragic death later on (just don’t fail too many QTE’s)

- Be confused as Chris when talking to Emily and do not show any concern for her or Matt

- As Chris, demand to have the pistol from Mike, he will deny you because you hit Josh earlier in the shed

- Survive the encounter with the wendigo as Chris all the way through, Ashley will refuse to let him in once he makes it to the house, letting the wendigo kill him

- Shoot Emily as Mike in the basement which puts his relationship with every character present at 0

- Hide the truth as Ashley from Sam since Sam will immediately figure out she is lying and their relationship will drop to zero

CHAPTER 9

- Once the action sequence as Mike starts, put your controller down and enjoy some relaxation as him (and the doggy :( ) get pummeled

- Investigate voice as Ashley

- Open the thumping trap door to get Ashley killed as you won’t have the opportunity to do so later

CHAPTER 10

- Let Matt get smacked by Jessica because funny

- Do not ask Jessica if she is alright as Matt since we do not want to show empathy

- Choose hide during the chase scene, make sure to catch Jessica before she falls

- Afterwards, choose abandon Jessica

* Running ahead could be seen as accidental where as abandoning Jessica implies Matt is knowingly leaving her to die which is much worse

- Fail to close the door in time to get Matt killed

- “Come on shake your body, baby, do the conga!“ AKA fail all the don’t moves

You did it! You made all these characters into the worst versions of themselves they could possibly be.

Ranked the Pals in Palworld based on how happy they make me. That’s it. It’s very subjective. All of these were vibe checks.

Salazzle is in its own tier because I love it and I hate it.

Also there is no order in the individual tiers. I just lumped them all together.

THIS IS THE GREATEST THING EVER THANK YOU MY FRIEND WILL BE SO HAPPY SINCE THIS WAS HER BIT

For @madametnt by request. Donnie is a UNIT! From the “move that made lebron cry” TikTok.

First effort at a lypsync of more than one word!

My friends and I were watching the episode Air Turtle (the one where they all play basketball) and one of them said that this was Donnie and I-

Had a mental breakdown over college algebra today. Now Shadow The Hedgehog is my math tutor.