Synopsis:
When the sun goes down on the last night of summer camp, nine teenage counselors are plunged into an unpredictable night of horror. The only thing worse than the blood-drenched locals and creatures hunting them are the unimaginable choices you must make to help them survive.
Publisher: 2K Games
Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
Also available for: PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC
Cast: Siobhan Williams, Skyler Gisondo, Ted Raimi, Grace Zabriskie, Miles Robbins, Halston Sage, Justice Smith, Brenda Song, Zach Tinker, Evan Evagora, Ariel Winter, David Arquette, Ethan Suplee, Lance Henriksen, Lin Shaye, Emily Axford, Brian Murphy
Developer: Supermassive Games
Director: Will Byles
Writers: Will Byles, Graham Reznick, Alex Farnham
Executive Producer: Michael Burnham, Jez Harris
Technical Director: Michael Bailey
Narrative Design: Victoria McKelvey, Alex Farnham
The latest narrative horror adventure from Supermassive Games has you taking control of nine different counselors who choose to hang around an extra night they’ll soon regret.
If you’ve played any of Supermassive Games’ previous horror titles, you know exactly how things work here. Be it Until Dawn or any of The Dark Pictures games, not much has changed from a gameplay perspective. You can explore areas at times, but you’re mostly watching scenes play out like movies, performing QTEs when needed, and making choices for your characters that’ll either see them live out the night or end up among the deceased.
This isn’t a slasher as the camp setting may suggest. Instead, The Quarry is a supernatural monster movie with plenty of jump scares and some gruesome kills. What the monsters are is the game’s primary mystery, so I won’t spoil that, but I enjoyed the twists leading to the reveal. I also liked the monster design, which plays against the usual structure of this particular creature.
I wouldn’t rate The Quarry as a particularly scary game, even if one jump scare did get me. There’s less tension and building terror than in the studio’s last game, House of Ashes, and instead a heavy reliance on jump scares. The gore with some of the kills is the bloodiest in any of their games — if that’s what you’re after. It’s the cast and story I enjoyed most, with the central mystery grabbing me more than any of the team’s other games.
The cast features some stereotypical roles — Jacob the jock, Emma the popular hot blonde, Abigail the sweet and shy best friend — but there are interesting surprises. Kaitlyn is a kick-ass character that plays against the grain, there’s a will-they-won’t-they LGBTQ romance, and even Jacob has a softer side that’s not usually seen in the movies that inspired The Quarry. Like any of these games, I grew to have favourites like Dylan (not just because he has the same name), Laura, and Kaitlyn, but I’ve seen a lot of love for characters like Emma, who I didn’t much care for.
More often than not, the choices that lead to a character’s death aren’t easy to see coming. It’s a list of small decisions culminating in an outcome you couldn’t have guessed. For instance, you can break a door at the beginning of the game, which won’t lock later if you try to hide there. Or there’s a cage where you can hide a character in the latter half; it doesn’t end well if you don’t release them before the finale. After you’ve beaten the game (or if you purchase the Deluxe Edition), you’ll have access to the Death Rewind feature, giving you three lives to use throughout your playthrough to save characters if they die. It’s an interesting idea that probably makes trophies/achievements easier, but it’s not how I like to play these games. Also, keeping everyone alive in a horror story feels odd — have you ever seen every character survive a horror movie?
A significant change between The Quarry and other Supermassive games is how simple the QTEs are. It’s believed this is because the game was originally in development for Google Stadia, so they’re all one-button inputs. Without a more challenging QTE option, some players may find the game too easy or less engaging.
The Quarry is a beautiful game and easily the best-looking Supermassive Games has released so far. Although there are slight issues with hair and lighting, the character models look fantastic, and there are truly beautiful scenic moments at camp. Pair that with a great soundtrack — which kicks off with an Ariana Grande banger — and you’ve got the most cinematic feeling game from the team.
Although not doing much to change their working formula, The Quarry is the best game Supermassive Games has released since Until Dawn. It could have used more inventiveness with the scares, but the supernatural plot and characters were more than enough to give this tale the bite it needed to keep me hooked.
(The Quarry code provided for review)
