Gather around the campfire screensaver gamers, as I tell you the tale of eight unlikable Gen Z camp counselors who are simply too stupid to live. The campers have all gone home, so there is nothing left to stop a crazy redneck family and some supernatural creatures of the night from terrorizing and quite likely killing off any or all of the primary playable cast. Only time (and your attention span) will tell who lives and who dies. The Quarry has arrived to quench that thirst for a campy, survival horror, adventure game; a thirst that started way back in 2015 with the game, Until Dawn that featured a similar cast of young adults spending a weekend in a mountain ski cabin. What could go wrong?
Since that time, Supermassive Games has kept the genre alive with their Dark Pictures Anthology series of horror games including Man of Medan, Little Hope, House of Ashes, and the recently announced fourth game in the series, The Devil in Me. The Quarry, while similar in style to the games that have come before it, attempts to elevate itself above the competition, and while production values and game content have never been better, let me tell you why The Quarry fails in just about every other aspect of game design.
The Quarry plays out like a Netflix miniseries with ten chapters that will take a total of 6-8 hours to finish depending on how thoroughly you explore the environments and which paths you take. There are 186 ending variations, which is ironic because I am certain you do not even interact with the game more than 100 times. There were gaps between decision points that were long enough for my DualSense controller to fall “asleep” …just like me who dozed off on at least two occasions during long rambling conversations I did not care about from people I did not like. Thankfully, the controller will vibrate if you take too long to make a decision. None of the endings are considered right or wrong, good or bad. You get the ending you get based on your choices and you live (or die) with it.
My issues with The Quarry are numerous starting with eight highly unlikeable characters. The level of passive aggression in just the first chapter is uncomfortably intense, especially for a group of teen-adults who supposedly just spent the summer together. You have all the archetypes; Emma the influencer who only cares about Likes, Comments, and Subs, cool girl Kaitlyn whose character model is just uncanny valley enough to actress, Brenda Song who voices her to become even more distracting than Ashley Tisdale was in House of Ashes. Ryan is my least favorite character mostly due to his inability to act. Every word out of his mouth sounds like his voice actor is stoned to the bone and reading from a script with no rehearsals. The only characters I did like were Abi (mostly due to her hair color and the way it would glow when backlit) and Dylan because he was super-chill and a smartass. And we can’t forget aspiring car mechanic, Jacob, who dooms the entire cast from the very first chapter by tampering with their truck, forcing them to spend one last fateful night at summer camp…with a full moon no less. They’re not gonna be Lycan this…
These “interactive movie” games have always straddled the fence when it comes to blending the passive movie experience with gameplay interaction, but The Quarry might just be the worst example of getting this balance correct. There are huge spans of time where you will do nothing but watch, and even in those rare moments of interaction many QTE’s are nonsense like catching a phone or set of car keys tossed at you or quickly steering to avoid a rock. The QTE’s are a joke, consisting of a circle that appears well ahead of any interaction, and then displays an arrow you need to match with a flick of the stick. You literally have 2-4 seconds to complete any of these, making them almost unlosable unless you fall asleep at the controls. Other mechanics include Interrupts, and Path Chosen events; the former being for more inconsequential decisions made in the moment while the latter is reserved for more critical path and life-altering choices. It’s worth noting that all of these game systems are marvelously explained in these short but delightfully animated tutorial videos.
I can’t really talk about the game without spoiling it, but I can talk about the multiple ways you can play The Quarry. Most modes allow for solo and couch co-op play along with a passive Movie Mode where you can choose the ending and simply watch the game play out just like a movie to see who lives and dies, or you can hop into the Director’s Chair to steer the narrative in real-time. Best of all, there is Gorefest option that really amps up the blood and gore if you like that kind of thing. You can revisit previous chapters to search for hidden Tarot cards or perhaps change your fate. It’s worth noting that you do get three lives (basically mulligans) to possibly reverse any unwanted or unintentional deaths.
The multiplayer modes are pretty standard. In co-op mode you divvy up the characters between the players then pass the controller back and forth as needed. The Wolfpack mode allows you to either join or host a game that has been configured by the host to affect the choices you make while playing. Fans of the lore will certainly want to check out the Bizarre Yet Bonafide podcast channel with six thrilling episodes including The Hag of Hackett’s Quarry…just had to say it one more time. My only issue with these is that you are stuck listening to these episodes in the menu with no time indicator or a way to pause, FF, or RW. I listened to the first few minutes of three of these but never finished any, so I can’t say how long they are. The production value and content is great and fleshes out the extended lore of the events of the game; I just wish there was a more accessible way to listen to them.
The crazy old fortune teller lady was a nice alternative to the shrink and the librarian from the other games, and I did enjoy the whole Tarot card collectible system. Some of those cards are very well hidden, sometimes only appearing in certain camera views. I only got 12/22 on my first pass, and most of those I stumbled upon by accident. 
The production values were fantastic, with great 4K visuals and consistently smooth framerates. Voice acting was also good despite the B-movie script loaded with cringe dialogue. The devs have really gotten their facial rigs down to create some super-immersive and emotive close-ups, but OMG…THOSE TEETH! I’m having flashbacks to Matt Dillon in Something About Mary.
I really wanted to like The Quarry, but the glaring lack of interaction almost had me annoyed when I was eventually asked to hit a button or push a stick to advance the story. You become so complacent just watching things unfold then BOOM…make a decision or die. I only used one of my “lives” because I quickly learned to hate almost everyone except the few favs I mentioned earlier. There were definitely some thrilling and even scary moments and quite a few twists and turns, although I was able to figure things out about halfway through the game.
If you love scary movies then The Quarry definitely fits that bill, but as a game it is severely lacking. Like most things, it does get better when shared in the co-op mode, but beyond going back to find all the Tarot cards and possibly experiencing a few of the variant endings there is little here to encourage replaying more than 2-3 times…certainly not 186. I’d wait for a good sale before I’d buy a ticket to this summer B-movie.
You can check out the first two hours of the game in our first-look video coverage with commentary.
