The Quarry

Review

Developed by Supermassive Games and published by 2K for PC, PS4/PS5, Xbox One and Series X|S, The Quarry is the newest horror graphic adventure that is probably going to be considered by many as the spiritual successor to Until Dawn. After the end of the summer season, a group of teen counselors is just about to return their homes from the Hackett’s Quarry camp when for some reason they find themselves stuck for one more night. Despite their tutor’s recommendation of staying inside the lodge until dawn, they decide to throw a party out in the camp. After all, what could go possibly wrong?

If you have previously played Until Dawn or any game from the Dark Pictures Anthology, you will be familiar with the game mechanics. For newcomers, there is a very detailed tutorial during the prologue that will highlight each action you can take. Playing as all nine counselors at different times and situations, you will be faced with multiple choices that will affect their relationships. Each choice will generate a new path with immediate consequences, with many other consequences appearing later in the game. As the night becomes more dangerous, you will need to take life or death decisions that will determine each character’s fate. Even performing small actions, such as keeping a weapon, can either work in your favor or cause the death of your beloved character. Don’t worry though, if one of the characters dies, the story will still continue with the rest of them, providing countless different situations and endings. The replayability is very high and there is even a “movie mode” that allows you to customize characters’ status and behavior in order to re-live the story as a spectator and watch different scenarios without any sort of interactivity. There is also a couch co-op multiplayer mode where each player is assigned to one or more counselors, while online play is going to be added soon with an update and will allow viewers to vote on choices and determine the outcome (basically a streamer mode).

In terms of writing and characters’ development, the quality of the story is higher than the ones I have seen in Man of Medan and Little Hope. The most noticeable difference here is that characters finally use their brain and have a more believable approach to the supernatural events, except for a few moments when they just follow their stereotypes and do the dumbest thing ever. The cast includes stellar actors like David Arquette, Ted Raimi and even the greatest Grace Zabriskie, just to name a few. Their facial animations are extremely detailed and they really did an incredible job at portraying the characters with all the subtle variations and change of emotions.

But the night at the Quarry’s Summer Camp is not the worst thing our characters will experience. There is one more terrifying enemy to defeat; one that tormented us for many years and we never got rid of: Quick Time Events. Yes, there are many of them in the game and some can be rather useless (like catching a phone that is falling). There should be consequences in case of failure, but I never managed to fail one and I refused to do it on purpose (but I probably will, just for curiosity). Even during the most intense moments, QTEs are really easy to complete, with enough time for you to push the correct buttons. I do appreciate that there are accessibility options in the settings that can completely eliminate QTEs and other actions by making them always successful, though disabling all the interactions would make the game way too passive for any standard.

Graphically the game is simply stunning. The Quarry may be a horror game, but exploring it is such a pleasure (not for the characters, though). The summer camp and its surroundings are very rich in details and you will often be left alone to explore these areas, searching for clues and collectibles, such as tarot cards that might show glimpses from the future of certain characters. Compared to the previous Dark Pictures Anthology, there are massive upgrades in the visuals, with characters’ animations being more realistic and fluid. The acting is phenomenal while sound effects are just as scary as the rest. There is also a wide selection of licensed songs that fit really well with the horror camping experience.

Technically there are still some issues, such as characters occasionally repeating the same words twice, random glitches on a few characters’ hairs and frame drops even around the 30fps. It didn’t bother me too much because it’s very playable even at 30fps, but it should be noted that this game will definitely test your hardware. Another weird problem is that right now you can’t choose different languages for voice-overs and texts; both are tied to the same language you chose while installing. Last, but not least, launching the game on Steam will open the 2K launcher, which honestly feels like an unnecessary and bothersome step (it doesn’t add any extra feature to the player).

Right now, the Quarry might be the best title from Supermassive Games. The narrative is intriguing, the writing is great and the cinematography is perfect. It took me around 11 hours to reach the ending, but I will definitely play more to discover all the other variables. Overall, the longevity mostly depends on how many characters you can keep alive until the very end. After completing the game, you unlock a very useful “rewind” feature, which gives you three opportunities during a playthrough to revert a character’s death and try to save them. Replaying the game is highly recommended, especially if you want to get the full picture of the story.

Review written by Sonic Punk for Zeepond.com

The Quarry Steam Store Page