The Quarry Review: ‘Enough Twists and Turns to Excite Even the Most Jaded Aficionado’

The summer camp is one of the most iconic tropes of the horror genre. Hapless campers and counselors have been getting hacked to death for our viewing pleasure for decades now, and Supermassive Games intends to give us its take in The Quarry.

Until Dawn, the studio’s last AAA blockbuster, was a massive hit. However, its bite-sized horror offerings in The Dark Pictures Anthology have gotten less than stellar marks (although I love them). So, as I sat down to begin my The Quarry review, I was curious whether lightning would strike twice.

Camping season’s over

The premise for The Quarry is simple. After a brief prologue, we join a group of counselors that have just finished the season at Hackett’s Quarry Summer Camp. They’re ready to say goodbye to the outdoors and return home, but a broken-down vehicle means they have to spend one last night at the camp alone.

The Quarry takes some risk early on with its pacing. While the prologue is a little teaser of the horror to come, it’s a slow burn when you get into the game proper. Camp slashers are notorious for quickly introducing a cast full of walking stereotypes and getting right to the bloodshed. Here, though, the characters are more three-dimensional, and the time the game spends on their development translates into a much more satisfying experience.

You also have the ability to roleplay a bit. You’ll control each of the seven counselors throughout various points in the game, and what you choose to say or do will shape these characters and how others react to them. For example, with Dylan, the jokester of the group, you could have him keep joking and poking fun at people, which will eventually make him enemies. Alternatively, you could guide him toward being less aggressive and have him open up about his life. Depending on your choices, your playthrough might give you a completely different impression about a character than me.

Most of the game plays out in cutscenes, with a smattering of exploration sections thrown in. Like Until Dawn, it’s a long, interactive horror movie, which might turn off some people. Essentially, you’re nudging the story a certain way and then watching it play out. The cast will live or die based on your choices, and no one is safe. Something you do in Chapter 2 might affect something that happens in Chapter 8 hours later.

All the major (and a few minor) characters in The Quarry can die in at least one part of the game. So, you might not get the opportunity to get to know some of the cast at all. I managed to save all the six counselors and most of the other characters, which meant my game clocked in at 10-11 hours. However, each playable character you lose effectively locks you out of their parts. So, a playthrough could potentially be much shorter than the one I experienced.

Without a clue

When you’re not in a cutscene, you’ll be controlling a character and searching through a small area. Most of the time, proceeding through the game from here is just a matter of reaching the right place or talking to another character. However, this is also where you’ll find the game’s collectibles. You can find clues as to what’s going on in Hackett’s Quarry, evidence to prove it’s not the counselors’ fault, and tarot cards that you can (optionally) exchange at the end of each chapter for a quick peek at a future event.

Unfortunately, the exploration sections did have some issues. The camera holds a very tight focus on your character’s upper back and head, with a narrow Field of View. Your character is at least offset to the left a bit, but the 21:9 widescreen format means it always feels like you’re trying to peak around them to see anything. I get that the devs were probably going for a claustrophobic feeling, but it was more frustrating than frightening.

These sections can also be painfully slow. Your character has no urgency to their movement, and the “run” button only propels them a bit faster than a normal walk. This didn’t bug me so much on my first playthrough, but during my second time through, I was begging for them to have a bit more giddy-up.

Slasher flick

Although I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to play through the game normally their first time through, The Quarry also features a Movie Mode that cuts out the gameplay and makes the game a very long movie. Fortunately, you still get a bit of influence over what will happen, even if you’re not controlling the action yourself.

When you select Movie Mode, you can choose between two extreme presets: Everyone Lives or Everyone Dies. Fortunately, you can also tweak each character’s reactions with four parameters. For example, you get to set how they act under pressure, their attitude in conversations, whether they’re likely to fight or run, and how attentive they are. So basically, a character can run the gamut from sweet as pie to the most insufferable person ever.

There’s also a Gorefest preset that purports to give you the bloodiest possible playthrough. However, it’s only available to those that purchase the Deluxe Edition for the game.

Hope you’re flying solo

The Quarry also has both local and online multiplayer, neither of which I was able to try. The local co-op allows up to eight players to control a counselor by swapping the controller between them. The online mode allows you to play through the game with friends and vote on key decisions so an entire group can shape the story. Unfortunately, online functionality won’t be available until July 8, 2022.

The online multiplayer is also launching without cross-play. That includes consoles within the same brand. So, if you have a PS5 and you want to play with someone that owns a PS4, you’ll have to install and launch the PS4 version of the game (the same goes for Xbox). Unfortunately, you only get previous and next-gen versions if you purchase the Deluxe Edition of the game. Also, you can’t upgrade physical versions of The Quarry for PS4 and Xbox One to the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions.

The Quarry Review: The final verdict

The Quarry is a celebration of horror with enough twists and turns to excite even the most jaded aficionado. It manages to avoid the tropes inherent with its summer camp setting by giving each of the protagonists a thorough opportunity for characterization and makes you care enough about each of them for their fates to matter. It’s not without flaws. In particular, the exploration sections have a few issues. However, Supermassive Games’ return to AAA manages to exceed the high bar set by Until Dawn.