Player beware, you're in for a scare!
Until Dawn wasn’t Supermassive Games’ first title, but it certainly thrust the developer into the public eye. A unique blend of horror, teen drama and a choose-your-own adventure style that was wildly different than what Telltale Games was delivering. It was an instant hit.
Supermassive’s debut into the macabre wasn’t without issues — namely, a third act that takes a crazy turn that’s a little hard to believe — but arguably remains the strongest entry in its portfolio. While its Dark Pictures Anthology has introduced a series of quality of life improvements, Supermassive has never been able to recapture the undeniable spark that formed the core of Until Dawn.
That is, until now. The Quarry is Supermassive at its best, delivering its own take on an ’80s slasher movie while leaning into everything that makes the genre — and more importantly, its past works — so good.
Powered by the juggernaut that is 2K, Supermassive has pulled out all the stops this time around. A giant cast of legendary and up-and-coming stars includes the likes of David Arquette (Scream), Ted Raimi (The Evil Dead), Lance Henriksen (Aliens), Lin Shaye (A Nightmare on Elm Street), Grace Zabriskie (Twin Peaks), Ethan Suplee (Remember the Titans), Zach Tinker (Days of Our Lives), Justice Smith (Detective Pikachu), Halston Sage (The Orville) and even Melburnian Evan Evagora (Star Trek Picard). The presentation is bolstered, right out of the gate, by a licensed Ariana Grande song — there’s been no expense spared here, people.
Thankfully, The Quarry’s narrative matches all the big names and big tunes. After seeing off the children that attended Hackett’s Quarry summer camp, its counsellors find themselves stranded there for one extra night. The camp’s owner, Chris, seems terrified by the idea and is insistent that the counsellors remain inside the camp’s lodge all night, as quiet as they can be and protected by locked doors. He won’t say why.
Neither, for that matter, will I. The Quarry slowly but steadily peels back the layers of its story, keeping you intrigued and on your toes. Twists and turns are coupled with red herrings, and all that is accompanied by some amazing character work that transpires between different pairings of the main cast. When your anxiety levels aren’t through the roof, you’re usually smiling at some sincere moments between characters or rolling your eyes at yet another lame, yet purposeful, joke.
As you make choices and respond to situations, you’re constantly receiving useful information. You’ll be alerted when making a choice that directly impacts the narrative with an on-screen prompt that reads, “Path Chosen”. You’ll be able to delve into menus to not only remind yourself of where you’ve left certain characters, but of the circumstances that lead them to that moment. Any collectibles you find will fill in gaps in the narrative; all-too-important Tarot Cards will also provide you with a glimpse of what could come to pass thanks to Grace Zabriskie’s spooky fortune teller. While I noted in my preview that it’s all coming from the usual Supermassive playbook, that particular character makes far more sense after further exploration of the world. She’s not a random, omnipotent insertion.
The only real downside to The Quarry‘s narrative — unless I’ve completely missed some key pathway in the three different playthroughs I’ve so far experienced — is that there’s a fairly large instance of queerbaiting that should have been left on the cutting room floor.
This time around, Movie Night means something completely different than in previous Supermassive titles. Rather than functioning as a playable multiplayer experience, it’s a movie proper — you set it, put your controller down and watch. Three different options are available inside the mode: you can watch everyone live, everyone die or tinker with individual characters and their personality traits to ensure endless combinations therein; there are, reportedly, 186 different endings to the game after all.
Movie Night’s an interesting concept but falls a little flat; you’ll occasionally skip through some narrative beats I would consider important to the overall story. Your characters explore their surroundings at times, but you won’t have the benefit of reading through any flavour text those discoveries would normally reveal. The fortune teller didn’t appear until the very end of my movie, and then chastised me for not finding a single collectible. An end credits sequence also used an in-game podcast to tell me how lazy I was for not picking up any evidence, despite a total lack of ability to do so. Worse yet, while you’ll receive a single Achievement or Trophy for starting Movie Night, you won’t earn any more as you watch the story unfold.
In short, Movie Night’s okay. A little more refinement and this mode will be a winner in future iterations. That said, getting properly down and dirty in Hackett’s Quarry is where it’s at.
When you’re in control, you’ll benefit from a series of quality of life improvements that Supermassive continues to roll out in its works. Having control of your character and your flashlight makes it easier to traverse through the wilderness, though camera angles can sometimes get a bit too close and wonky; navigation under those circumstances is harder still considering most sequences are set in the woods in the dead of night. You’re also sometimes at the mercy of these Resident Evil-style fixed angles and could potentially miss out on a Tarot Card if you’re not careful.
A number of quicktime events could also catch you off guard, but thankfully accessibility options — which are for everyone, as games themselves games be — can help to extend timers on those challenges or even automatically handle ones of your own choosing.
If you’re dead set on keeping everyone alive (pun very much intended), you’ve got a little help this time around. Complete the game once — or spend big on a Deluxe Edition, as this is a 2K game we’re talking about, after all — and you’ll gain access to a rewind feature that provides three lives, or do-overs. While the lives are indeed useful to have, don’t think they’re an ultimate saviour — I burned through all three in a single sequence by stuffing up the timing on a shooting quicktime event or by making a stupid choice directly afterward. Once you’ve exhausted those lives, you’re back at the whim of fate… or at least, required to start up another playthrough if you don’t hit an outcome you like.
Those with a love for a good, scary story — or several — will have endless enjoyment at the helm of The Quarry. With strong writing, extreme self-awareness, exceptional performances all around (shoutout to Ariel Winter as Abigail, Brenda Song as Kaitlyn and Miles Robbins as Dylan) and a confidence that’s exuded no matter the branching path you find yourself in, Supermassive has outdone itself. There are still some rough edges, but you’ll quickly forget about them as its mystery pulls you in, somehow managing to keep you hooked even after you’ve witnessed a handful of its endings.
The Quarry heads to Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PS4 and PS5 on 10 June.
The Quarry was reviewed using a promotional code on Windows PC via Steam. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.
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The Quarry10 June 2022PC PS4 PS5 Xbox One Xbox Series S & X
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