At this point, it doesn’t even help we beat around the bush. I know I love horror to an unhealthy extent; you all know I love horror to an unhealthy extent. Let’s move on. Two horror games stand out as milestones for me throughout my gaming life. The First would be Silent Hill 2, which I would say was my first ever proper horror game and is responsible for me falling in love with the genre. And then there is Until Dawn, the best horror game I’ve played as an adult and responsible for me falling in love with my partner. I guess surviving through a horror game together will either bring you together or tear you apart, but when you find someone who naturally makes the same survival choices, you would? That’s true love.
Even though I love most horror, everything within the genre is not the same, and arguably, the best genre has to offer would be teen slashers. There is just something about watching young dumb people do young dumb things and then get slaughtered in the most graphic and brutal ways that is just so intensely satisfying. That teen-slasher horror sub-genre is exactly what The Quarry brings to the table… or more accurately, the screen.
The Quarry starts you off with a group of eight “victims” to control. These are a group of “just out of high-school” kids who have just finished spending their last summer before college at Hackett’s Quarry Summer Camp working as counsellors. When their car doesn’t start, and they realise they will have to spend one more night entirely on their own at the now-abandoned summer camp, things start to go wrong. Fast. When the camp owner begrudgingly allows them to stay an extra night with the warning that they stay inside, no matter what, and keep the noise down, the first thing the group does? Throw a party. Outside. With fireworks. Now I’m not going to say anything more about the story because that’s all you need to know to go into the game and have the time of your life trying to keep everyone alive.
The Quarry’s attention to detail is unmatched and sure to capture the attention of horror fans and newcomers to the genre alike. Everything in the game is themed to suit the ’80s vibe, from the game menus to the oddly charming Fallout-esque animated tutorial videos to the fact that all your choices are saved as old VHS tapes. The Quarry thought of everything… well, most things…
The one issue I had with The Quarry is one worth bringing up. Unlike the previous Supermassive Games titles, this time around, you aren’t trying to find pictures to reveal a possible future; no, this time, you’re picking up tarot cards which will then be handed to a strange old lady during chapter breaks who will read your future. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my time with the old crone; what I don’t appreciate is how she spent the first few chapters blatantly shaming me for not having found any cards to give her.
The Quarry, in all its greatness, decided to hide those damn tarot cards inside cutscenes and annoying unnoticeable camera changes, and if you don’t press a button quick enough when they are visible, you miss the card. Now one might argue that the cards aren’t necessary, but if you don’t want to spend the rest of the game being card shamed by an actual hag, then they are, and I would appreciate the game not screwing me out of them.
One of the best parts about The Quarry is that Supermassive Games knows and understands their strengths and leans into them. The lighting in the game is some of the best around, and it’s constantly used to evoke emotion and help set the atmosphere – exactly what you want your horror to be focused on. To add to this, the characters in the game all look and sound so believable that the unsettling “uncanny valley” feeling soon fades away as your brain accepts that these are the actors themselves and not some graphical representation of them.
Looks aside, though, the other area where The Quarry excels is in the game’s extended runtime. Coming in at a solid 10 hours of playtime (providing you haven’t killed all your characters before this), The Quarry uses this ample time to focus more on the setup and gradual build-up than with their previous titles. There also seems to be a way more significant and intense focus on your decisions compared to past games. And in a game where most of your input comes to choices, this is what you want to hear. The Quarry also won’t let you see or experience all it has to offer in just a single playthrough; instead, it encourages you to go back and try to right your past wrongs and create a better and more “alive” outcome for those you control.
At its core, The Quarry is a choose-your-own-adventure game. You play through a series of cutscenes and get to make multiple branching choices depending on which character your currently controlling. These decisions will then start to build off each other, creating a sprawling story filled with various little strings holding it all together.
When you aren’t spending your time making choices, there are also multiple quick-time sequences, the success or failure of which can decide a whole character’s fate. Dodge under a branch and live; forget to dodge and condemn them to a slow and painful death. Such is the core mechanic of The Quarry. Very few situations within the horror genre are more panic-inducing than knowing one snap decision might change your entire game and come back to haunt you.
The impact of your choices can really be seen by using the newly included “life” system that offers you three lives to use throughout your game if characters perish; whenever you choose to use one of these lives, you are taken back to the event that ultimately sealed that characters fate. However, that single thread could have been over an hour of playtime ago – this isn’t a game filled with arbitrary choices; it’s a game that seeks to make you believe your choices are arbitrary and then strikes you down when your guard falls.
An entertaining addition to the game is the included movie mode. While I don’t see myself playing through The Quarry again anytime soon (not because I don’t want to but simply because of the time), I still want to see more of what the game offers. Enter “movie mode” this is a feature that allows you to WATCH the game unfold in multiple, predestined ways. From a cut of the game where everyone lives or everyone dies to a “gorefest” cut that showcases the most brutal ways for each character to perish – this is a mode made for those who finished the game but still find themselves wanting more and who aren’t ready to wave camp, and summer goodbye.
