REVIEW: ‘The Quarry’ Is A Pure Gold Thriller (XSX)

If you’ve gone to a summer camp, you’ve probably been startled by those bumps in the night. What about the rustling in the trees? At least from my experience, I was always on edge about SOMETHING surprising me out in a place that is far away from society. The Quarry, by developer Supermassive Games and publisher 2K Games, targets that exact feeling. The latest choose-your-own-adventure horror game this time takes us to a summer camp, where one night everyone’s darkest fears come true.

In The Quarry, you play as a group of camp counselors who, due to the choices made by one of them, are stuck to stay at camp one more night before returning home. However, the camp’s owner is panicked by this and demands everyone stay inside, lock the doors, and don’t respond to anything. Weird reaction after having a whole two months of outdoor fun here, right? So what does a group of young 18 to early 20s counselors do? Grab some beers and party! But that decision to ignore the owner’s orders quickly turns into a decision they all will regret.

Similar to past Supermassive Games games, The Quarry plays out by you choosing what the characters do and say. However, what I found most improved was the game clearly outlining WHICH choices are impactful. After certain choices, whether it be not shooting something, missing an item, or a dialogue option, the prompt “Path Chosen” appears. You can’t miss it when it pops up. I thought this was a great addition for the sole purpose of it helping me remember down the line what could have caused the outcome I was experiencing.

On top of that, the expressive animations have improved immensely. My issue with past games like Until Dawn or The Dark Picture Anthology was that the characters never felt or looked human when reacting to choices. They’ve always felt like an act. Almost like the developers tried to make it a point to overly express a character’s feelings. In The Quarry though every character, even the villains, actually feels human. There’s much less exaggeration which feels like it got traded in for a je ne sais qois in the eyes. What I mean is, that the eyes look like they’re carrying the weight of the expression from the mouth or body movements. Something that we humans actually do.

But with the improvements in the environment and facial expressions, flaws elsewhere became much more noticeable. Particularly with water and the character’s hair. With the hair, there was an odd yet distracting opaqueness to it. In close-up scenes, there was a distracting shimmer too that felt very out of place. When it came to water, the animation was just bad. With a game being on a lake, and with TLC devoted to most other places, the water effects looked like afterthoughts. There is one scene in particular where two characters are splashing in the water. The water splashes look like they came from a PS2 game.

That’s not all for design aesthetics though. The Quarry is DARK. Not just story-wise, but pitch black dark at times. Even in evening scenes, I had a very hard time navigating around. Heck, even with the brightness set to 100 (the maximum), there were still parts that were nearly pitch black. Plus, changing the brightness didn’t seem like it affected much. So I’m not sure if that was an issue with my copy, or with the game itself in the end.

Taking things back to improvements, I was amazed by not just the expressions, but the dialogue too. This is the best voice work for a Supermassive game. Featuring an all-star voice cast with the likes of Brenda Song (Suite Life of Zach and Cody), Justice Smith (Detective Pikachu), Grace Zabriskie (Twin Peaks), and so much more. What these actors brought to the table that not many others did in past games was make every line feel naturally reactive. Their delivery didn’t just feel like they were reading a script and calling it a day. Rather, they felt like they practiced to get the tone right for each option. All while staying in character.

Finally, I want to touch on the villains of the game. Without getting into spoilers, the “villains”/ evil beings attacking the counselors definitely weren’t the scariest in the developers’ history. I can count on one hand how many times I actually got scared during my playthrough. Could I have made certain choices that took away scarier moments? Absolutely! Is that a problem though? Not in the slightest. To me, the diluted horror moments added more to the campiness (pun intended) of the game.

The overall feel of The Quarry is like watching old VHS tapes. Film tears occasionally pop up, “Path Chosen” pop-ups make it look like a VHS tape got paused, and even the pause menu has similar effects added. This all adds to the feel of, “oh, this is meant to play on 70s and 80s horror movies like Friday the 13th“. Not just in the setting, but the overall feel too, trying to replicate how we watched those movies back then. In total, this all adds a fun campy vibe that honestly makes up for some of the negatives I listed before. Adding more to my experience than taking away from it.

The Quarry is a fantastic return to form for Supermassive Games. Every character stands out well on their own thanks to the fun and excellent writing. The monsters and villains, while not terrifying, are a very cool take on the Summer Camp Horror stories that we’ve seen time and again up until now. With just a little more refinement on the rough edges, there’s no doubt this game would’ve been a top 10 horror game. Even then, The Quarry is memorable, and I highly suggest you check it out, especially with a group of friends.

The Quarry is available now on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC.