Sony Corp's PlayStation 4 Console
A man plays a video game on Sony Corp's PlayStation 4 console at its showroom in Tokyo July 16, 2014. Reuters/Yuya Shino

Supermassive Games has released a brand new trailer for their upcoming PS4 exclusive horror game, "Until Dawn." Written by Hollywood talent and starring Hayden Panettiere and Rami Malik, the new video shows the cast of "Until Dawn" meeting a grisly end at the hands of a mysterious villain.

The trailer, posted on the official PlayStation YouTube page, opens with a classic horror movie shot of a log cabin in the snowy woods at night. A group of young friends arrive, settling in for a good time. It isn't long before things start to go horribly wrong. Romantic rendezvous are intercut with scenes of members of the group in shackles, in pain or being attacked by an unknown assailant. The tension ramps up as the group is forced to make difficult decisions, and the trailer ends with a shot of a rose, bleeding on a sheet of ice.

The video does a fantastic job of showing off the game's striking lighting and impressive graphics. VideoGamer.com reports that "Until Dawn" runs on an updated version of the "Killzone: Shadowfall" game engine, and it shows. Textures are crisp, surfaces are well-lit and environments are suitably atmospheric. The game is rich with ambient detail; fog, snow and volumetric light do a wonderful job of setting the mood, but the star of the show are the character models, which are rendered in exquisite detail.

Taking a leaf from narrative-centred games like "Heavy Rain," "Beyond: Two Souls" and this month's "Life is Strange," "Until Dawn" focuses on telling an adaptive story driven by player choice. As Gamespot notes in its coverage of the trailer, the game tells the story of eight friends who retreat to a remote cabin getaway to commemorate the anniversary of their friend's death. Things go sideways quickly, and soon members of the group begin to die. Supermassive promises that who lives and dies depends on the choices players make during gameplay.

As VG24/7 states, "Until Dawn" was originally a PlayStation 3 title, first revealed by Sony at Gamescom in 2012. At the time it was intended as a showcase of the PlayStation Move peripheral. "Until Dawn" on PS3 was eventually cancelled, and the studio redesigned the project as a PlayStation 4 game.

Before its re-emergence as a PS4 title, Polygon reported that it had been re-tooled as a game designed to show off Sony's VR headset, "Project Morpheus." The rumours prompted a response from Sony's head of World Wide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida. Yoshida remarked that "Until Dawn" would be a really good fit for "Project Morpheus," but that the game's design would need to be significantly altered. "Until Dawn" is scheduled for a release on PlayStation 4 in the summer of 2015.

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(Credit: YouTube/PlayStation)