“THe QUARRY Review – Stuck in the Uncanny Quarry”
Since its surprisingly excellent debut in 2015, Until Dawn has hung over Supermassive Games. From the forgettable Hidden Agenda to the most recent Dark Pictures entry, every game since has been not only much smaller in scale, but also not nearly as good. Given its larger scope and horror angle, The Quarry is being positioned as the studio’s first true spiritual follow-up to Until Dawn. But, despite being Supermassive’s best and most polished game in seven years, it’s also disappointingly stale, doing little to break away from what almost every other game in the studio has done time and again.
Its setup is the most familiar part, as is the all-too-familiar tissue that connects them all . The Quarry’s many cutscenes are filled with dialogue options and quick-time events, interspersed with brief sections where the player walks around an area looking for clues, collectibles, or random trinkets. Authoring the experience in this manner adds interactivity to a cutscene-heavy game and places the genre more in line with the medium.
The Quarry, on the other hand, doesn’t do much new in this well-worn space. And, while there is value to be gained from these choices, they are almost exclusively these types of choices. Quick-time events are almost always extremely easy (and there are mysteriously no harder difficulty options this time around) and aren’t an appealing primary way of engaging with the game’s action-oriented sections. There also appear to be fewer of them this time, so many of the more frantic scenes play out strangely without much input. It’s almost as if Supermassive knew quick-time events were tiring and removed some of them while leaving nothing else in their wake.
Quick-time events account for only a small portion of the branches, while conscious dialogue choices account for the vast majority of the rest. Some of these lead to interesting quandaries that force the player to make a quick decision that could have serious consequences later. The best of these fit well within the horror genre and have obvious stakes and outcomes; it’s up to the player to stressfully weigh these in the moment.
The worst of these are arbitrary, excessively punishing, or anticlimactic. There are numerous paths with no clear benefits or drawbacks, which means that a single, seemingly innocuous decision can result in someone being disembowelled. Survival is frequently based on clairvoyance or luck rather than intuition and paying attention. It’s frustrating to have poorly foreshadowed outcomes because it appears that the game has to play cheaply in order to kill off characters. Horror films are filled with quick, gruesome deaths, but it’s annoying to lose someone unexpectedly in a video game like this because the dishonest tricks are more frustrating when interactivity (and the attachment that comes with it) is involved.
Interactivity, or the lack thereof, is the larger overall issue with the game’s general philosophy regarding choices, as they are presented in an unimaginative and restrictive manner, calling into question the game’s overreliance on quick-time events and dialogue choices. Relegating most of the game’s decisions to these lightly interactive bits is dated and no longer as inventive or exciting as it once was. Supermassive has ensured that, as this is the developer’s sixth game of this type since 2015. (and the seventh is due out later this year). Until Dawn was a great first step in that direction, but failing to move past that and then flooding the market with games like that almost annually only harms that market.
Putting more of these decisions directly on the sticks would be a better way to advance the genre and would be superior to the current technique of constant choice screens and quick-time events. Instead of having to choose between hiding and fleeing, players should be able to sprint to the closet if they want to hide and sprint out the door if they want to flee.
The Quarry is a rollercoaster in the sense that it frequently locks players to binary choices, but that theme park ride comparison is also an apt description of its narrative, which frequently fluctuates between highs and lows. It establishes the premise of a summer camp with a dark secret, one that has direct contact with the camp’s diverse group of nine “teenage” counsellors. None of them are walking clichés, and while there are far too many to explore in depth, the majority of them deliver solid performances and are appealing in their own right. The two standouts are Zach Tinker’s Jacob and Brenda Song’s Kaitlyn. His positive frat bro charisma is endearing, while her tough attitude and sense of humour make her endearing
For most scenarios, r is a more balanced character.
They’re also among the most animated of the bunch, which isn’t always the case with the rest of the cast. The majority of them move convincingly and outperform anything else Supermassive has done so far. Subtle facial movements and mannerisms add to their realism, and more nuanced gestures make the story more immersive. Because of this approach, its jokes are funnier, and its dramatic scenes are more, well, dramatic.
When everything comes together, it’s impressive and could compete with other high-budget games, but it also looks strange or is otherwise hilariously off. The Quarry has a problem with mouths because some are too large or oddly shaped, while others scrunch up and show too many teeth. Characters will occasionally animate their faces but not move their heads realistically. And almost anything that couldn’t be mocapped as easily, like when someone falls or is thrown, is excruciatingly painful due to the bodies’ weightlessness.
These uncanny issues, along with a small handful of visual bugs, appear frequently enough to undermine the realism Supermassive is clearly aiming for. Although well-captured performances can enhance a game’s story,
Janky animation can undo or diminish many of those improvements, even if they are good most of the time, as they are here. Everything in The Quarry is vastly superior to anything seen in the Dark Pictures Anthology — a low bar that should be easy to clear — but it still lacks polish in a few key areas.
A portion of the game’s other narrative flaws can also be attributed to various technical oddities and bizarre choices. Frequent loading screens frequently disrupt the flow and energy of a scene, with one in particular ruining a clever transition. It’s as jarring as its many too-short sections or the ones that switch between two different characters before they’ve even met done everything The Quarry borrows heavily from cinema, but many of its poor editing techniques detract from the pacing of a great horror film.
The first half’s pacing is slow, but it primarily serves as a setup for the game’s stronger second half. The central mystery it introduces is slowly teased out and explored more in the final few acts, and, like House of Ashes, offers a fresh take on something ripped straight from popular horror fiction, even if the game lacks scares and spooky scenes. Certain revelations and backstories mesh well, but the show’s large cast means that not everyone benefits from those qualities and receives a fitting ending or a significant role near the end. The narrative, like the rest of the game, is full of ups and downs; in this case, there are just more ups.
SCORE: 6.5/10
According to ComingSoon’s review policy, a score of 6.5 equals “Decent.” It falls short of its full potential and is a mundane experience.