Cracking the code to adapting any video game into a TV show or movie may have a higher success rate than before, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Oh sure, super-fast hedgehogs have become box office titansand the spore-based success stories once again made us cry Pedro Pascal. However, in the case of director David F. Sandberg’s adaptation of “Until Dawn”, the difficulty level might be a bit higher.

Originally released in 2015, “Until Dawn” was a cinematic horror game where you took control of a group of characters, where every turn you turned or conversation the player chose to get involved in could have a impact on his life or death, not the single play-through was the same. It was made for one of the best horror video game experiences. Now, as seen in Sandberg’s first look at the film (embedded above), it appears that a variation of this mechanic is being cleverly implemented in an entirely new story and in an entirely different setting than the game on which the film is based.

The original “Until Dawn” game notably featured motion-captured performances from Rami Malek, Hayden Panettiere and Peter Stormare, the latter of whom was the only returning actor confirmed to be starring in the film version. “Until Dawn” follows a group of friends stranded in a snowy mountain cabin as different types of thrills take hold. In this promo, however, the footage (which also contains excerpts from interviews with Sandberg and co-writer/producer Gary Dauberman) includes what looks like a good old-fashioned house that screams “haunted” with no snow in sight . Of course, just because the location is different now doesn’t mean it will stay that way.

According to Sandberg, who returns to the horror genre after leading a pair of “Shazam!” films, “Until Dawn” has a mechanic “that will see the characters die and they can try again.” So far, so “Happy Death Day,” right? Unlike that exceptional horror-comedy franchise (which mixed “Scream” and “Groundhog Day”), this new film will include a video game trait of resetting the characters not only to the land of the living, but to a totally different. . “Every time they come back to life, it’s like they’re in a new kind of horror. To survive, they’ll have to hold out until dawn,” Sandberg added.

This detail suggests that the film is doing its best to match the original game, which mixed a multitude of horror genres and threw you into it with each character you controlled. While one wandered around a cabin looking for an unidentified stalker, another got lost in the corridors of an abandoned and still very busy psychiatric hospital. With that in mind, don’t be surprised if things turn cold for the film’s cast (which also includes Maia Mitchell, Odessa A’zion, and Michael Cimino) and at some point they all find themselves in a difficult situation . which fans of the original video game will find very familiar.

“Until Dawn” hits theaters on April 25, 2025.