There is something wonderfully cruel about announcing a horror game called Until Dawn and then making everyone wait until January to actually play the sequel.

Sony and Firesprite have confirmed that Until Dawn 2 will launch exclusively on PS5 on January 28, 2027. Pre-orders open September 10, with a Digital Deluxe Edition bringing additional costumes and a rather morbid extra for players who apparently enjoy studying their friends’ deaths from multiple angles.

So yes, Until Dawn is sticking around for a while. Until January 2027, in fact.

The sequel was first announced in June as a standalone follow-up with an entirely new cast, a new setting and a new supernatural nightmare. Now we finally know when that nightmare begins — and the latest trailer gives us a much better idea of the trouble waiting for the new group of unfortunate souls.

And honestly, they probably should have stayed home.

Until Dawn 2 follows Dead True, a group of paranormal YouTubers who have built a successful channel around investigating supposedly haunted locations. There is just one small problem: they have never actually encountered anything supernatural.

Their scares have been staged.

That changes rather dramatically when the crew comes face-to-face with something that is very much not staged.

The group initially heads to Blackwood Sanitorium to film an episode about tragic events that happened 12 years earlier. Izzy, the team’s new intern, uncovers something unexpected, setting off the chain of events that eventually takes the crew far beyond the safety of their cameras.

Their next stop is HorrorCon in Sydney, where they meet Yoona, a survivor of a supernatural attack. Her warning — and a particularly disturbing scar — points them toward Akishima Island, a remote location in the South Pacific that has been abandoned since a luxury resort mysteriously shut down in the 1970s.

Because apparently “remote abandoned island with centuries-old supernatural secrets” is exactly the kind of thing you should investigate when you’re already being paid to make spooky YouTube videos.

Akishima is where things really begin to fall apart.

Firesprite says the island contains secrets that are centuries old and hungry for vengeance, while the new story puts considerably more emphasis on relationships between the characters. The choices players make aren’t limited to obvious life-or-death moments, either. Smaller interactions can influence relationships and trigger consequences later in the story.

That sounds very much in keeping with what made the original Until Dawn work.

The 2015 game turned the familiar teen-horror setup into an interactive nightmare where seemingly insignificant decisions could come back hours later to ruin everything. The new game is clearly aiming to keep that philosophy intact while giving it a new cast and a completely different environment.

And this time, the characters are arguably even more entertainingly doomed.

One of the new characters, Owen, is Dead True’s cocky star. In the latest trailer, he has to decide whether to follow a signal that could lead him to his missing friend Nate or take a detour across a rickety bridge toward a suspiciously lively bar.

Naturally, both options sound terrible.

That’s exactly the kind of decision Until Dawn 2 seems to be built around: you know something is wrong, but you don’t know which version of wrong you’re about to get.

Then there’s Mina, the group’s conflicted co-host, who gets perhaps the most absurdly horrifying assignment yet. The network wants a ritual sacrifice performed live on camera.

And yes, the victim can be the group’s chicken.

You can sacrifice the chicken to satisfy the network’s demands, or set it free and potentially put yourself in the line of fire instead.

Somewhere, a television executive is apparently thinking, “This is going to be fantastic content.”

The cast includes Owen, Mina, Nate, Reagan, Izzy, Luke, Josie and Cameron, with the eight Dead True members forming the core of the new story. The game is being developed by Firesprite, with AdHoc Studio — the team behind Dispatch — collaborating on the story. Firesprite says that partnership is intended to bring deeper character relationships, sharp dialogue, difficult decisions and plenty of gruesome consequences.

There is also one familiar face returning from the original game: Dr. Hill.

Peter Stormare reprises the role, giving Until Dawn 2 a direct connection to its predecessor despite the sequel’s otherwise fresh cast and setting. Firesprite previously described the game as a standalone experience, so newcomers shouldn’t need to have played the original to understand what’s happening.

That standalone approach is probably a smart move.

Rather than trying to recreate the mountain lodge, the original characters or the exact structure of the first game, Until Dawn 2 appears to understand that the series’ real identity isn’t one particular location or group of characters. It’s the idea of putting a bunch of people in a horrifying situation and then handing the player enough control to make things dramatically worse.

Which, let’s be honest, is where the fun is.

The new game also seems to be leaning harder into the uncomfortable collision between horror and entertainment. Dead True isn’t simply investigating supernatural stories because they’re curious. They’re building a media business around them. Once a television network gets involved, the pressure to produce increasingly outrageous footage becomes part of the horror itself.

The characters aren’t just trying to survive the island.

They’re also trying to make content.

That could give Until Dawn 2 a particularly modern flavor. The original game was very much a slasher-inspired interactive horror story. The sequel’s setup adds influencers, streaming-style entertainment and the increasingly strange relationship between real danger and something being worth filming.

And that gives the game’s choices another layer. Do you make the sensible decision, or the decision that gets the footage?

Do you save someone, or chase the clue that could make the next episode incredible?

Do you protect the chicken?

These are the important questions of our time.

Firesprite has also confirmed that the Digital Deluxe Edition will include a Y2K Neon Vibes Pack, allowing players to dress all eight Dead True members in colorful neon outfits. There’s also a “Diorama of Death” feature that lets players revisit grisly deaths through vignettes showing different angles of each fatal outcome.

Pre-ordering either the Standard or Digital Deluxe Edition will also unlock additional Dr. Hill-themed content, including a classic Until Dawn outfit, an Akishima Island holiday outfit and collectible Dr. Hill bobbleheads hidden in the game.

The release date itself puts Until Dawn 2 in an interesting spot. January 28, 2027 is still several months away, giving Firesprite plenty of time to show more gameplay, introduce the remaining characters and explain exactly what is going on with Akishima Island.

But it also means horror fans now have a very specific date circled on the calendar.

January 28.

Until then, there is only one thing left to do: wait.

And wait.

And perhaps avoid suspicious abandoned islands, haunted sanatoriums, mysterious scars, rickety bridges and television networks demanding live ritual sacrifices.

In other words, Until Dawn 2 arrives January 28, 2027, on PS5.

Until then, I suppose we’re all playing Until Dawn until January 2027.