Until Dawn: Rush of Blood

Until Dawn: Rush of Blood
Information
VR/AR	Virtual Reality
Developer	Supermassive Games
Publisher	Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platform	PlayStation VR
Device	PlayStation VR
Operating System	PlayStation 4
Type	Game
Genre	Horror, Shooter
Input Device	PlayStation Move (up to two), DualShock 4
Game Mode	Single-player
Release Date	October 13, 2016
Price	US$19.99 (launch)
App Store	PlayStation Store
Website	https://www.supermassivegames.com/games/until-dawn-rush-of-blood

See also: VR Apps and VR Games

Until Dawn: Rush of Blood is a virtual reality horror rail shooter developed by Supermassive Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation VR headset on PlayStation 4. The player rides a roller coaster through seven horror-themed levels and shoots enemies and targets. It is a spin-off of Supermassive's 2015 PlayStation 4 horror game Until Dawn and reuses some of its locations and characters.

The game was announced on 27 October 2015 and released on 13 October 2016 as a launch title for PlayStation VR, at a launch price of US$19.99. Reviews were mixed, and the game holds a score of 72 out of 100 on Metacritic. Supermassive's 2023 PlayStation VR2 game The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR is its follow-up in the same on-rails horror format.

Reviewed 4 October 2026. Release dates, prices, store requirements, PSLS/Game Informer interview, PlayStation Blog posts, Metacritic and OpenCritic scores, and each quoted review (Destructoid, Push Square, Game Informer, Road to VR, UploadVR, Gaming Trend) checked against the cited sources. About review dates.

Gameplay

The player sits in a roller coaster carriage that moves automatically along a fixed track, so the game is a rail shooter in a literal sense. Some of the locations will be familiar to players of Until Dawn, while others are new. Supermassive describes it as an arcade shooter in which players shoot hordes of enemies and monsters from all angles and duck and dodge incoming attacks. Each of the seven levels has multiple paths, and players compete on global leaderboards. The settings include a slaughterhouse and haunted hotels, according to Road to VR.

The game can be played with one or two PlayStation Move controllers or with a DualShock 4; the PlayStation Camera is required. With two Move controllers, each wand controls one gun, and the two guns can be aimed, fired and reloaded independently. The guns also work as flashlights for lighting dark areas and finding extra targets. Push Square noted that a DualShock 4 player loses the ability to aim each gun separately. In its preview, Gaming Trend noted that players use head movement to dodge obstacles, look around the world and keep track of enemies while shooting.

Hitting targets builds score multipliers. The player starts with handguns, and UploadVR's review lists shotguns and grenade launchers among the other weapons. Weapons are swapped by shooting coloured crates placed along the track. Levels also hide collectible dolls and secrets, and Destructoid counted four difficulty settings. Reviewers put the campaign at about three hours.

Game Informer described the framing device as a therapist who turns into a carnival proprietor and acts as the player's tour guide, with Until Dawn characters Hannah, Beth and Josh Washington mentioned only in passing. Destructoid wrote that the game is framed around a mental asylum, with most levels using a carnival theme.

Development

Rush of Blood was made by Supermassive Games, the Guildford-based studio behind Until Dawn. In a December 2015 interview with Game Informer, reported by PlayStation LifeStyle, executive producer Simon Harris said the team was "well into the development of this as a VR game before we knew exactly how Until Dawn was going to be received." Harris said the VR game shared the same core engine and toolset as Until Dawn, which made it easier to carry over content such as locations and characters. He described pacing as one of the most important aspects of the design; during testing the team used galvanic response meters to measure how players responded to the build-up, quiet periods, suspense, jump scares and intense action.

Harris announced the game on the PlayStation Blog on 27 October 2015, during Paris Games Week, as a game developed exclusively for PlayStation VR on PS4, describing it as a journey through "many familiar aspects of Blackwood Pines, but from a horrifying new perspective". A playable demo was shown at PlayStation Experience in December 2015, where attendees used two PlayStation Move controllers. Gaming Trend's preview called it "a pretty solid tech demo" but questioned how much it had in common with Until Dawn as a series entry. Sony's PlayStation Blog ran an "Until Dawn: Rush of Blood week" of videos and features in September 2016 ahead of launch.

Release

Until Dawn: Rush of Blood launched on 13 October 2016, the same day as the PlayStation VR headset. It sold for US$19.99 at launch. It is rated M by the ESRB for blood and gore, intense violence and strong language. As of October 2026 the US PlayStation Store listed it at US$14.99, along with a free trial. The PlayStation Store and Metacritic list a release date of 10 October 2016.

From 7 November 2017 to 2 January 2018, the game was available to PlayStation Plus subscribers at no extra cost as a bonus title alongside that month's regular PlayStation Plus games.

Event	Date	Notes
Announcement	27 October 2015	PlayStation Blog post during Paris Games Week
Release on PlayStation VR (PlayStation 4)	13 October 2016	Launch title; requires PlayStation VR and PlayStation Camera
PlayStation Plus bonus title	7 November 2017 - 2 January 2018	Free download for subscribers

Reception

Until Dawn: Rush of Blood has a Metacritic score of 72 out of 100 based on 51 critic reviews, in the "mixed or average" range. On OpenCritic it has a Top Critic Average of 72, with 39% of critics recommending it.

Several reviewers praised the jump scares and how VR heightened them, while others criticized the repetitive shooting and the tracking of the Move controllers. Push Square scored it 7 out of 10 and wrote that "it's the jump scares that are the real stars here", though it found long stretches of the roughly three-hour campaign slow and noted that the dark levels made the PlayStation VR screen door effect more visible. Destructoid's Chris Carter gave it 7.5 out of 10 and praised the independent dual-wield aiming with Move controllers along with the score-attack challenges, collectibles and secrets. Game Informer's Kyle Hilliard gave it 7 out of 10 and called it "a good, straightforward way to kick off PlayStation's virtual reality initiative".

Road to VR's Garret Bullard scored it 6 out of 10. He found that the game started promisingly but criticized basic, repetitive shooting, poor enemy animations, controller tracking problems and occasional motion sickness on sharp turns. In UploadVR's review, David Jagneaux wrote that it "delivers on the promise of pulse-pounding scares", while criticizing repetitive gameplay, tracking issues with the Move controllers and frustrating boss fights.

Publication	Reviewer	Score
Destructoid	Chris Carter	7.5/10
Game Informer	Kyle Hilliard	7/10
Push Square	Sammy Barker	7/10
GamesRadar+	Louise Blain	4/5
Hardcore Gamer	Marcus Estrada	3.5/5
IGN	Chloi Rad	6/10
Road to VR	Garret Bullard	6/10
GameSpot	Peter Brown	5/10

Legacy

Supermassive followed Rush of Blood with a second PlayStation VR game set in the Until Dawn universe, The Inpatient, a prequel set at the Blackwood Sanatorium in the 1950s, released in January 2018.

In 2023 the studio released The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR for PlayStation VR2. Writing on the PlayStation Blog, game director Alejandro Arque Gallardo called it "our first on rails shooter horror VR game since Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, which was an original title for PS VR in 2016", and said the team remembered players "daring their friends and family to try it as their first VR experience".