Supermassive is back with another horrific tale...
I’ll admit it straight out of the gate: I love what Supermassive does, but even I’m feeling a little burnt out by it all of late. Until Dawn was an instant classic in my eyes, but I found myself struggling to complete The Dark Pictures House of Ashes. Despite the superstar power of Ashley Tisdale behind it, I had to break up the slow slog through a series of dark tunnels into a number of short, sharp bursts, and honestly finished it out of a sense of obligation rather than enjoyment.
Part of a new partnership between Supermassive and publisher 2K, The Quarry certainly isn’t part of The Dark Pictures Anthology, but for better or worse shares a lot of the same DNA. Thankfully, the hour or so of hands-on time I’ve recently had with it put it more into the Until Dawn camp (almost literally) rather than a murky cave in Iraq.
Though we were deposited into gameplay at Chapter 2 of the game, The Quarry offered up a great vibe right off the bat. It’s set in the present day, though its menu and many elements of its UI are reminiscent of old VGA games that would have appeared around the same time Friday the 13th graced cinema screens. It’s apt — things kick off in a summer camp that’s about to shut down until next season; the children have gone home already and only a handful of councillors remain. They, of course, intend to get up to no good… but so too does a malevolent force that’s lurking in the woods.
Like Until Dawn before it, The Quarry benefits from a range of celebrities that portray a set of potential teenage cannon fodder, though it smartly doesn’t rely on that. These characters actually have character; there’s the shy, reserved guy and girl that aren’t prepared to reveal their feelings for each other even though they’re both head-over-heels, the insecure jock who resorts to ridiculous displays of bravado to mask his own fears, the bitchy cheerleader, the properly confident one… and that’s information you’ll glean just minutes into the narrative.
I was ready to drag some of the dialogue between the characters as cliched, but it actually fits within the genre. In contrast, other bits of dialogue are extremely deep and clever, so I’m prepared to believe it’s all intentional; the only exception is that the characters have an annoying habit of calling each other by name two or three times within a matter of a minute.
The characters are instantly relatable and pull you into what’s unfolding. Evan Evagora (Star Trek Picard) and Zach Tinker (13 Reasons Why) are clear standouts — likely because we actually spend a lot of time playing as them both in Chapter 2 — while Justice Smith (Detective Pikachu) comes across as the weakest of the bunch; there’s a little disconnect between the actor’s lines and movements.
On the subject of movement, The Quarry can manage to look photorealistic at time and extremely uncanny valley in others. You’d be forgiven if you thought you were actually watching Evan Evagora in action until he pulls off dance moves that instantly bring up thoughts of the dancing baby in Ally McBeal. It’s possible visuals like the particular dance I have in mind aren’t fully polished ahead of release, so fingers crossed those immersion-pulling instances aren’t present come 10 June.
The majority of what I played was simply a dialogue select, though there were sections where I needed to control movement of a particiular character. It’s standard Supermassive fare; I as usual almost missed a quicktime event trigger or two because I put down my controller and acted as if I was watching a film. I’m sure there are options toggles to prevent that from happening as with recent entries in The Dark Pictures Anthology.
In the one instance, a choice threw up a Dark Souls-like banner across the screen that read, “Path Chosen,” so you know something big had just gone down. While I didn’t get a chance to use it, I know my fears of missing a prompt or making a dumb choice can be somewhat alleviated by a new, limited-time use rewind system.
There are a number of collectibles in the world, including Tarot Cards that help to uncover visions of what may befall your characters. They’re addressed in-narrative by a Director-like figure portrayed by Twin Peaks‘ Grace Zabriskie, and while I’m always ecstatic to see Mrs Palmer chew scenery, more of me wishes Supermassive didn’t feel the need to follow its tried-and-true formula down to the letter. A short animated sequence that played as I tracked down a piece of evidence seemed more in-theme with what was going on and perhaps could have sufficed. Time will tell.
All up though, Supermassive’s latest has me far more excited than concerned; I’m extremely excited to jump back to Hackett’s Quarry and save — or end — some lives that I properly care about already. Expect The Quarry on 10 June 2022; the horror title will be available on Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PS4 and PS5.
The Quarry was previewed using a promotional code on Windows PC via Steam, as provided by the publisher.
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The Quarry10 June 2022PC PS4 PS5 Xbox One Xbox Series S & X
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