The Quarry Review – The Next Until Dawn?

Supermassive newest interactive horror/drama game has been released for about a week now. Said to be the spiritual successor to Until Dawn, I held very high expectations for this game. The cast for the game looked good and the game itself from early looked was as dark as some previous releases. Now having played through the game I have a bit of a mixed feeling about the game.

Graphics

I want to start with my biggest praise for the game and that is with the graphics. Graphically speaking, this game has the best in the series. That series is Until Dawn and Dark Anthology. Though this is expected considering the availability of next-gen consoles, it looks amazing.

More particularly I want to mention the lighting. The lighting on different materials, in different environments, and on such small details is just immense and it boosts the dark atmosphere that they aimed for. This combined with the animations and movement makes the visuals of the game outstanding and somewhat realistic.

Performance-wise it doesn’t disappoint either. On PS5 I was consistently playing at 60FPS and 4K. The only thing that lets this down is the bugs. The biggest is a ghosting/graphical bug around the main characters. It does ruin the visuals quite a bit if you get it to happen and can be a bit frustrating to deal with.

Story

The story is the focus of the game, as expected, and I do have some mixed feelings about it. I want to start with the characters. I think the cast did a really good job at displaying the emotion and feelings of the characters. But I think it is quite let down by the story and plot itself. I won’t be getting into any spoilers here so don’t worry about that.

My biggest problem with the story is that many of the dialogue options are just really goofy. And this ruins the tension that is built up in many of the events in the story. There are a few moments that suffer from this where you do hilariously question why these dialogue options are even available, they are so far out there and absurd that it makes so many moments just ridiculous. On the good side, this does offer a lot of entertainment value as you get to see where those paths take you. But if you were taking it seriously, it will ruin quite a few moments.

The story overall though is decent. I am going to put it simply now; I don’t think it is better than Until Dawn. The story and ending are quite straightforward and predictable. From quite early in the game, you can easily pick up on what is going on and why, and though it takes the mystery out of it, there is still a lot of fun to be had. The game feels a lot more like a drama game than horror. It’s not very scary from start to finish. There are a few moments that are quite tense and excellent, but I felt these were just a bit mixed throughout.

The ending itself is also a bit underwhelming. You don’t get to see an ending with all the characters or any sort of closure. You just complete your mission (if you want to call it that) and it then goes onto display a summary of the result of your actions (which you already know because they all occur during the game).

Gameplay

There are a few points I want to make about the gameplay. There isn’t much here in terms of gameplay, but that was expected. A lot of what you will do gameplay-wise are quick-time events or controlled breathing events. I tended to opt for a quick time as it was just easier and felt faster to complete. The controlled breathing aspect isn’t too difficult, but it can become a bit difficult as it mostly relies on what you can see around you which can be a bit of a pain at some angles. And as a result, you tend to fail a bit more. Not many complaints about these as it's just personal preference.

I do want to mention the new death rewind feature. This is a new feature in the game where if a character dies after one of your actions, you can rewind and choose the other option. This feature kind of felt a bit worthless. A lot of deaths through the game are made up of options starting from the beginning. And if you choose to use a death rewind, you are taken back to that crucial moment and do it all again. It feels like this feature was more meant for deaths caused by failing an event or making a silly mistake.

Verdict

That is about all I have to say about The Quarry without going into spoilers. As said, I don’t think this game is “the next Until Dawn” or better than its predecessor. The story itself is just very mediocre, isn’t very scary at all and felt often goofy at points. The cast I felt did very well considering that their characters were a bit underwhelming narrative-wise. Is it worth the £60/£70 you must pay? I’d recommend waiting for a sale, it isn’t going to be any different from now until that point.

Overall, I am going to give The Quarry a 6/10. It’s decent and I had quite a bit of fun with it. Though I found it quite goofy, it did make it more entertaining. Not much to say other than that. Felt more like a movie than a game at most points, but not awful in any case.