The Quarry is a video game version of a fun slasher flick

The Quarry is the next game from Supermassive, the studio behind Until Dawn and the Dark Pictures Anthology. I got to preview a small portion of the game this week. On the surface it’s very similar to those games, but it has some fun, campy (no pun intended) vibes that its predecessors lacked.

The Game is a summer camp horror film in video game form set in the fictional Hackett’s Quarry. You play as a handful of teenage camp leaders having one more night of fun at the end of summer. During their merry evening, some human hunters and something supernatural destroy the party. It’s up to the player to keep as many teenagers alive as possible, and the choices you make throughout the game will determine their fate. Yes, it’s Until Dawn-meets-Friday the 13th.

It’s tough being a camp counselor

I couldn’t play much of the game, but I did get to play as a couple of the kids during my preview time. Well, I say “kids” – they’re all played by actors in their mid-20s to early 30s. And yet I get a more childish feel from them than from the characters in Until Dawn. They find a way to spend another night alone in the camp and are ordered to stay indoors where it’s safe. So what are they doing? Go outside to have a big party. Sounds right.

The characters fit the usual teenage archetypes used by Supermassive in Until Dawn. You have the brother, the shy girl, the pretty blonde and of course a character who is the de facto leader. Neither of them have much depth, at least not from what I’ve seen. You will likely be able to recognize the murder victims and possible last girl/man as soon as you see them. If you’re a true horror movie fan, you can probably guess their death order.

You occasionally see a bit of mocap, where a character’s face doesn’t move quite as naturally as I assume their actor did. But it’s not as big of a deal here as it was in Until Dawn – I suppose because it doesn’t get the camera as close to their faces as the latter game. For the most part, the actors did a good job of acting the way adults think silly teenagers act.

Who’s First?

My only complaint is that so far the perspective changes aren’t particularly well defined. During the first game, it switched between characters every few minutes. Sometimes my only indication that I was playing as someone new was either when a new dialogue prompt popped up for that person or when I paused and their face was all over the menu screen.

It’s not a big deal other than they sell a lot of character connections and I want to make the right choices for those characters. It’s hard when I don’t know exactly what character I’m playing from one moment to the next.

Also, just some news: The game will not have multiplayer at launch. Maybe I’m not using my imagination, but I’m not sure if “multiplayer” is the right term for this mode: it’s a co-op mode in which viewers of the game can vote on what decision a player makes. I’m excited to see how much use this will bring when it arrives sometime post-game.