The Quarry Review

The Quarry

Release: October 6, 2022
Publisher: 2K
Developer: Supermassive Games
Genre: PlayStation 5 Reviews, XBox One ReviewsXbox Series X Reviews
PEGI: M
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The Quarry is developed by Supermassive Games and was designed to be a spiritual successor to Until Dawn. Both games are basically interactive movies that you control multiple characters and narratives and the choices you make (or don’t make) can drastically change the outcome of the story.

Supermassive has also in recent years been the driving force behind the Dark Pictures Anthology games however I personally have been very disappointed in those games, but really did enjoy Until Dawn. The game is played entirely from a third person perspective as you control the many numerous characters throughout the game, it’s heavily inspired by 80s and 90s horror flicks, fitting into all of the stereo types and tropes we’ve come to expect from a Friday the 13th or Scream type movie.

The game is very tongue in cheek and does it brilliantly. Every character in the game may live or die depending on the choices you make, which can shift the narrative all over the place. The overall play time is around ten hours or so with exploration but can be much shorter if you make poor choices and kill off people too quickly. I was able to make it through the game only losing one playable character (whom I hated anyway so I wasn’t upset about it).

The game as mentioned above contains a pretty large and well-known cast including the game features a large ensemble cast including Brenda Song, David Arquette, Halston Sage, Ted Raimi, Ariel Winter, Ethan Suplee, Lance Henriksen, Lin Shaye and Justice Smith.

The game is divided into ten chapters along with a prologue and epilogue. In between each chapter, as is traditional with Supermassive Games’ horror games, there are occasional intermissions with a narrator, this time being fortune teller, Eliza, addresses the player directly and guides their future choices by reading tarot cards that the player has collected throughout the game.

Due to the game’s branching storyline, it has 186 different endings, affected by player choices, performances in quick-time events, and vigilance in finding evidence and clues determine the game’s conclusion, as well as the public’s perception of the deaths that occurred at Hackett’s Quarry.

Laura Kearney and Max Brinly drive during nighttime to visit Hackett’s Quarry, where the two have been hired as summer camp counsellors. The two swerves off the road to avoid hitting something on the road and crash into the woods. A local county sheriff approaches their car and orders them to stay the night at a nearby motel, but the two drive to the camp anyway. Upon arrival, Laura hears a noise coming from a civil defence shelter under the lodge and opens it. Max is attacked by a monster and the sheriff arrives at the camp to sedate Laura, who falls unconscious.

Two months later, seven camp counselors—Abigail Blyg , Dylan Lenivy , Emma Mountebank, Jacob Custos, Kaitlyn Ka, Nick Furcillo , and Ryan Erzahler — have closed the Hackett’s Quarry summer camp due to summer’s end and are saying goodbye to a bus load of departing children. However, their own plans to return to civilization are derailed by Jacob, who had recently been dumped by his girlfriend Emma.

Jacob clandestinely sabotages the camp van in an attempt to spend one more night at the camp and win back Emma. The camp owner, Chris Hackett, asks them to stay locked inside the lodge for the night and tells them he will return with help in the morning. The group instead decides to look for beer, throw a bonfire party, and play a game of Truth or Dare, and well if you ever seen a horror movie you know it all goes downhill from there. I am going to avoid story spoilers to keep you all engaged but let’s just say it’s a wild ride.

Overall, the gameplay mechanics are nothing new to this genre of game, graphics are good, I had very minimal glitching or things of that nature. Some of the folk’s hair kid of pops in and out and doesn’t have much movement except for in cutscenes. Where the game shines most is the voice acting and writing.

The cast performs so well and there are ALOT of nods to classic horror throughout the game. After your first play through you can easily revisit in movie mode with others and experience the story without playing the full game again. So, there are lots of replay options here once you are done with the game. I had a great time with this one and was pleasantly surprised after being burned by so many of the Dark Pictures games. This one should be on your Halloween to-do list.

Trailer