The Quarry Review: There's more than one way to skin (and scare) the cat

Normally, when people talk about "modern" horror gaming, franchises like Outlast, Five Nights at Freddy's, and maybe Resident Evil Village are probably among the first to spring to mind. 

To say nothing of the things that spring out at you while you play them. 

But that's exactly the point. Because such jumpscare tactics are so common today, most people tend to forget that there's actually more than one way to scare the living daylights out of someone. Now as much as I personally shy away from "deliberate self-scares" for the sake of sleeping at night, I concede that The Quarry actually does a very good job of it, all without relying too much on the genre's conventional game plan.

It's cliche...or is it?

Developed by Supermassive Games of Until Dawn fame, the team's newest and arguably creepiest title doesn't aim to scare you using the standard "Boo!" around every corner. Rather, it slowly builds up the tension using great audio placement and a surprisingly decent narrative, until you're ready to jump under the covers at that first "bump" in the night. Also, since the game relies heavily on its narrative, I'll be keeping it as spoiler-free as I can, and that means no names too.

To provide some context, The Quarry's narrative centers around a group of nine teenage camp counsellors, who find themselves stuck in Hackett's Quarry for an extra night due to vehicle trouble. Normally, spending another night out would be fine, except for that mysterious violent monster threatening to tear them limb from limb. To make matters worse, the locals aren't exactly helpful. Quite the opposite, really - for some reason, they seem intent on preventing the teens from leaving the quarry, and they're not shy about using force either. 

Now, I won't deny that the narrative setting sounds kind of cliche at first glance, what with the whole stuck-in-a-spooky-place routine. Amazingly though, the developers have actually turned what should normally be a huge conceptual flaw into what I find to be one of the game's biggest plus points - more on this in a bit!

Play

Fundamentally, The Quarry doesn't play like a conventional game. Instead of having you in the pilot's seat at all times as most titles do for immersion's sake, you're only able to explore your surroundings for collectibles in certain scenes and select between a given number of options in the actual story sequences.

For example, during one scene where one of the teens is being chased by the monster, you can either choose to climb up a nearby tree, keep running or wait for the timer to run out and see where that gets you. Of course, every choice you make affects your experience of the game and more importantly who lives or dies by the end. Accordingly, this also means that The Quarry can offer different endings too, which I feel adds a reasonable amount of replayability to it.

Psychological sucker punches

But let's go back to the elephant in the room: how do you scare someone without jumpscares? The answer here is to introduce tension and uneasiness. By using foreboding, ominous audio, coupled with gradual "bump in the night" buildups, The Quarry essentially lets players start scaring themselves, and just when they think they're out of the woods - bam! Chase scene!

Man, I hate it when that happens. 

Surprisingly enough, I don't think that's the most intelligent part. No, that honour belongs to the way in which the game toys with you psychologically using the fact that players assume it's cliche. You see, the thing about such tropes is that you only think you know what's going to happen. It makes for excellent bait if you ask me because, in a bid to be "smarter" than your average horror game character, you decide on what you perceive to be the more practical choice. 

But after that, where do you go? What do you do?

Aha. It is at this point you slowly realise that you are now effectively in the same position as that character you thought made a poor decision. In short, The Quarry preys on players thinking that they know better, only to sucker-punch them immediately afterward, placing them in a situation where they might be even worse off. Go figure.  

Pick your poison

Of course, some fancy mind games aren't all that the game has to offer, because depending on what you want it to be, The Quarry can be a film, a game, or some middle ground between the two. As a matter of fact, this is another of the game's main selling points.

In other words, I simply love how versatile the game's experience is; you can tailor it to have as much or as little player input as desired and enjoy it accordingly. For those who prefer a more proactive game-like experience, you're free to enable all inputs and explore various choices. This style of play can even involve rewinding some of your choices using the Death Rewinds to potentially prevent a character from dying. However, do note that although three instances of this function are freely available per playthrough to those who have purchased the Deluxe Edition, you'll have to complete a full run to enable this on the vanilla game. 

As a matter of fact, you can even choose to bring in your best buddies for a run. The Quarry supports co-op play for up to seven other players online, and with everyone making their own choices and voting on key decisions, it can actually be an insanely fun and endlessly dynamic experience. 

As for those who would prefer your "steak" done film-style, you can actually opt to reduce the number of inputs or even preset the characters' personalities at the start in Movie Mode. After doing so, you'll be able to watch them make decisions automatically based on those presets, allowing you to grab the popcorn and cozy up for an impromptu movie night.

In short, I think this expansive freedom to really "choose your own experience", especially in the way that Supermassive has chosen to approach it is a very unique value-add that we should have more of in modern gaming, not just horror titles. 

Pebble in your shoe

Play

Despite its versatility and intelligent game plan, The Quarry does still have one or two potholes, though they're relatively minor. For example, even if you enable all the available player inputs and treat it like a game, it still isn't as interactive as I imagine most players would like it to be. The gameplay formula, at least mechanically, is extremely simplistic, ranging from quick-time inputs to finding collectibles, conversational choices, and even the odd instance of button-mashing. Granted, I will admit that it's unrealistic to expect the same level of mechanical engagement as something like Nier: Automata, but it doesn't change the fact that you actually can get bored of this aspect.

Then there's the fact that the game, like many choice-based titles, tends to get quite demoralising if you keep winding up with the same ending. Of course, you won't know everything in a single run which, to Supermassive's credit just shows how well-designed the narrative is, but there's no way you'd be entertained trudging through the game a second or third time making different choices just to end up with the same conclusion after all the effort. Yet, I'm inclined to close at least one eye on this since this is an inherent flaw of the choice-based gaming sub-genre, and isn't technically caused by poor game design. 

So, for all intents and purposes, I think The Quarry is a pretty solid game, which says a lot coming from someone who wouldn't touch Outlast with a ten-foot pole. It might not be scary in the traditional jumpscare sense but fret not, it still checks that box off using "psychological manipulation" and what I'll call a very novel way of trolling its players. With that in mind, if you can't decide whether to watch a thriller movie or play a scary game, you might want to consider picking this up, because quite frankly, it offers the best of both worlds for both you and any of your pals who want to join in. An easy 8.5/10.

The Quarry is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC (via Steam). 

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