The quasi-sequel to Until Dawn looks terrific and advertises countless possible story courses. But this freedom of choice comes at a price.
Horror is a paradoxical thing: do we want to be scared … or not? On the one hand, fear and terror are not the most pleasant feelings and no one wants to be the one wetting their pants the most at the next horror party. On the other hand, a bit of panic is just part of the game and if it says horror, we want horror in it. The Quarry, the spiritual successor to the Playstation-exclusive surprise hit Until Dawn, belongs more to the gentler category and could only rarely really shock us, despite the occasional jumpscares and joyous splashes of blood.
It was rather the successful and wonderfully awkward teen characters that provided goosebumps moments and entertained us perfectly even without massive panic. Because The Quarry, like Until Dawn, leaves a lot of control to us, we can steer the adolescent confusion at will and are responsible for who survives all the chaos in the end and who does not. However, there are always some long stretches in the course of the game, which somewhat inhibit our desire to try out the 186(!) different endings.
Because we are not the genre police, we cannot make a final decision as to whether this is horror or not. Nevertheless, we are sure that teen horror fans will get at least ten fun hours of play with The Quarry.
Technically uncomplicated, but effective
We start from scratch: In the prologue, we are greeted by a rather corny pop song by Ariana Grande and some elaborate tracking shots through dense forest including atmospheric night atmosphere. Pretty impressive and expensive looking first minutes if you ask us.
We are introduced to a young couple, Laura and Max, who get completely lost on their way to Hackett Quarry’s summer camp. The two argue a bit and quickly we realise probably the greatest strength of The Quarry: it really does look great! The characters’ facial expressions and gestures are believable, and a quick Google search reveals that the characters are the spitting image of their real actors. The motion capture is impressive and we feel like we’re in the cinema, only more in the middle of it.
A little car accident later, we stumble through the gloomy forest as Laura and the game hands us the steering wheel for the rest of the game. When we’re not influencing the action in cinematic sequences through dialogue options, we explore the surroundings in search of clues that will tell us what’s going on here in the first place.
As soon as things get dramatic, simple quick time events usually decide over the life and death of the characters. The challenge is rather to stay really attentive, because of course the teenagers stumble just as precisely as they like to surprise into all the traps that the horror scenario offers.
General gameplay is simple, but still entertains us perfectly thanks to the impressive visuals. Because The Quarry is so beautiful and cinematic, we recommend spending the game with a controller, on a large screen and in as horizontal a position as possible, ideally on a couch in front of a TV. But be careful: don’t be tempted to put the controller down, because you’ll pay for it bitterly in the form of a missed QTE!
Kevin alone … in the quarry
In the first chapter we meet our (soon to be) beloved main characters. Hackett’s Quarry summer camp is already over and the counsellors are also getting ready to go home. If it weren’t for blockhead Jacob, who wants to spend one last night with his summer sweetheart Emma, sabotages the van, saving everyone from a safe ride home.
Camp leader Chris Hackett pleads with everyone to spend the whole night indoors, but has made his calculation without the unreasonableness of the youth. The rascals would much rather have a campfire party and reminisce together.
Thanks to the technique and the well-chosen actors, we quickly feel connected to the characters and get lost in the typical web of relationships. We have favourites (in our case show-off Dylan and outsider Ryan) and are not bored despite the rather long exposition that now follows. Once night falls and it starts to get uncomfortable, we’ve long since grown fond of our characters and are gleefully fighting for their lives.
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A little bitter in the aftertaste
While the first five hours of The Quarry present a pleasant pace and a plausible story, it gets partially lost in chaos in the second half of the game. The story becomes simultaneously more predictable and more absurd. Moreover, new characters are regularly introduced that would not have been necessary at all. These get a surprising amount of attention and distract us from the characters we had originally developed sympathy for. This makes for long stretches that take the wind out of the sails of the built-up tension and have no place at all in the final phase of a cinematic horror game.
If we don’t make careful decisions and act at all times, the characters slowly die off. Basically an exciting mechanic – but “saved” characters have a conspicuously thin role. This is somewhat clumsily solved, because we really want to see our favourite characters in action after they have survived. So even dramatic deaths feel almost irrelevant at some point because it makes surprisingly little difference to the course of the story who survives and who doesn’t.
Similarly, the finale The much advertised 186 sound impressive on paper. In practice, simple text boxes disappoint, informing us rather dryly which characters have died and of what. Why is there no preview here of how the survivors carry on? The whole game consists of cinematic sequences, so we expected at least a short end credits. And so it seems as if we have whipped our darlings through this terrible (for them) night completely in vain, because at the end they seem as dead as their actual fallen friends.
A little thank you in the form of a final scene would have rounded off The Quarry and not left us with this bitter aftertaste, which the game did not deserve at all. For especially in the first hours of the game, the technology and graphics are quite convincing and we are curious to see where it will lead our group. When we then find out that it leads them practically nowhere, we are disappointed and wish for more for the actually successful characters.
Editorial conclusion
In The Quarry, yes, I was most excited to see Brenda Song, who takes on the role of Kaitlyn and whom I last saw in “Hotel Zack and Cody” ages ago. This is surprisingly indicative of my impression of The Quarry, as the characters were the clear highlight of the play for me. Through motion capture, facial expressions and gestures are more realistic than ever and the actors have a lot of scope and can develop wonderfully.
However, when many of the characters hardly appear after half of the game, I was a little surprised. The Quarry doesn’t really fill the void created by this and then the existing shortcomings really stand out: too little horror, irrelevant gameplay, logical gaps in the story. I would have preferred one or two characters less, but then they all play leading roles until the end. And please – give me a more satisfying ending that doesn’t leave so much open.
