Supermassive’s latest horror romp, The Quarry, is out now on consoles and PC, but with large shoes to fill following on from games like Until Dawn and The Dark Pictures Anthology, can it stand on its own two feet? When it comes to gameplay, The Quarry is Supermassive’s best title to date, but its story falls flat with all of its many endings missing the mark.
The Quarry is an end-of-summer story that sees a group of teenage camp counsellors packing up after their two-month stint at Hackett’s Quarry. The group has formed some tight bonds during their time together, with budding romances, unrequited love, lust, regret, and hopes for the future all explored within just the first few scenes of the game. Things take a turn for the counsellors when they find themselves unable to get home - something which camp lead Mr. Hackett, played by horror legend David Arquette, seems very upset about. As darkness falls, the group finds themselves the target of multiple terrifying threats, and it’s up to the player to help them survive the night - and solve the mystery of Hackett’s Quarry.
There are lots of reasons to love The Quarry. It features a cast of teenagers based in tropes seen throughout classic slasher horror movies, seemingly inspired by the likes of Friday the 13th, Scream, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. The characters are well fleshed-out, each with their own histories and motivations expertly brought to life by the impressive cast who lend their talents to the game, with The Quarry starring Brenda Song, Ted Raimi, Ariel Winter and more. Spending time with each of the counsellors offers new ways to experience the game and world, with different characters approaching similar situations with varied reactions and options.
Unfortunately, the collection of playable characters is far too bloated for the 10-hour experience. With nine camp counsellors to play as, the time is unevenly split between the cast, and the characters one might like the most may well end up having the least playable time. This proves to be a problem for characters like Emma, who shows off her strengths early in the game only to be permanently sidelined shortly after.
One of the major strengths of The Quarry lies in its beautiful world design, wonderful music, and impressive visuals. Far surpassing even the later instalments of The Dark Pictures Anthology, The Quarry has a dark and fully-fleshed world with a range of different explorable environments that all make the most of new-gen capabilities. This could well be one of the most visually impressive games of the latest console era, with impressive attention to detail and hyper-realism. Similarly, the game surpasses its predecessors in its gameplay and design, with sleeker and smoother quick-time events, shooting, clue inspections, an overhauled menu, better accessibility options, and new mechanics. The Quarry is worth playing if only to see how true to a cinematic experience it really is, and what the latest gaming technology can achieve in really putting the player into the slasher movies of the 1980s.
Playing into its schlocky horror movie roots is another strength of The Quarry, which finds a nice balance between cheesy lines and potentially silly narrative decisions, all of which sit well with Supermassive’s goal of creating an interactive summer camp horror experience. Being able to play as the teens who normally end up slaughtered in movies thanks to their own lack of awareness - and try to save them - remains the best part of any Supermassive game, but it certainly seems less challenging in this release. QTEs and Don’t Breathe prompts seem to have less room for error, which makes it easier to survive encounters and keep the counsellors alive. Similarly, for those who’ve played a few Supermassive games before, it’s usually clear which decisions are the right ones to make and which will end in death, which makes The Quarry arguably the easiest Supermassive game in which to save all the characters.
The major flaws of The Quarry really don’t show until later into the game, starting around Chapter 7. Here, not only does The Quarry commit the worst mistake of previous Supermassive Games - spoiling the mystery of the monsters before the big reveal - but it also stumbles in its characters and story. Switching to two unexpected faces pauses the game’s momentum, and moving away from the campsite of Hackett’s Quarry for a full Chapter forces the player to spend time with people they haven’t spent the last few hours trying to protect and save. This immediately disrupts the pacing in a way that the game doesn’t quite recover from.
While this is frustrating, it doesn’t compare to the disappointing ending of The Quarry - no matter which ending a player might get. Beating the game lacks satisfaction, with no major end-game battle or challenging boss to defeat. Unlike the end of Until Dawn, which offers a tense showdown between the surviving teens and their foes followed by police interrogations of the group, The Quarry ultimately ends with just a single bullet, and in one of the main endings, the dangerous foe that’s defeated isn’t even attacking the player when this happens. This lack of payoff for players’ last 10 hours in-game is worsened by the finale, in which none of the characters unite. The game simply ends, leaving the player to wonder about the budding romances, strengthening relationships, and even the reactions of the camp counsellors should the player have killed their friend or lover.
In this review playthrough, a hasty decision led to the death of one Quarry character whose partner’s entire arc was based upon saving them. Despite the intense guilt of killing someone so beloved to one of the teens, there were no consequences for this, with the player not even getting to see the survivor learn of the death of the person they worked so hard to save. The ending of The Quarry is very unsatisfactory, with no real resolution for the people the player has fought to protect for the entirety of the game.
For those who’ve been patiently waiting for an up-to-par follow-up to the immensely popular Until Dawn, The Quarry might not be it. While its immersive gameplay and dynamic characters are enough to carry the majority of the game, the title is a narrative adventure with no resolutions for its heroes. A post-credits scene revealing how The Quarry survivors escaped - and what came next - or even just a reunion between the friends after their ordeal would have gone a long way in saving what ended up to be a disappointment. While The Quarry is an impressive graphical showcase of new-gen possibilities, it seems that in terms of story, players will have to continue waiting for a true successor to Until Dawn.
The Quarry is available now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Screen Rant was provided with a digital download code for the purpose of this review.