10 Quick-Time Events That Made Video Games BETTER

2. Don’t Move - Until Dawn

Horror movies can be especially scary when you don’t get to see the big bad, horror games can be especially scary when you’re unarmed or underpowered, but Until Dawn took this one whole step further and told you to not move at all. For the uninitiated, Until Dawn plays out like a cabin-in-the-woods horror movie with a few twists and turns, one of which puts you face to face with actual monsters called Wendigo.

Up until this point you’ll have been quickly choosing dialogue options, executing QTEs, and making a pile of branching choices that have very real life and death consequences for your group of characters.

It’s all based around a butterfly effect core mechanic where the impact of your actions is constantly game changing so you’re never not tense or worried about a current, future, or past decision and its potential to kill off one of your favourites. In the face of the Wendigo, though, whose ability to sense movement is better than their sight, there’s no decisions to be made, just don’t move or you’re dead.

This involves holding your controller very still. Or if you’re a dirty cheat like me putting it down altogether because you’re going for a perfect run and don’t want to stumble on the final hurdle. It’s a fantastic tool at maintaining tension in a new way near the conclusion of a game that’s all about weaving perfectly panic-inducing QTEs into a dense horror narrative.

I picked a particular moment for this one but honestly I could easily have picked any, Until Dawn’s grasp of seamlessly working QTE’s into a cinematic narrative game in a fun way is bar none so I could have just written ‘The Whole Damn Game’. Speaking of which, we’re up to our final entry.