The Quarry (PC) Review

The summer has wrapped up and camp is over, the kids have gone home and the high school councillors are finishing up their duties. Just as it seems to be going all swimmingly, the mystery of two missing councillors starts to unravel. From start to finish The Quarry nails the spooky and eerie atmosphere, which is inherent to the player who knows something has gone awry after playing through the brief prologue. The characters themselves feel comfortable in their setting, after all they have spent a whole summer at Hackett's Quarry without anything out of the ordinary.

As the plot progresses players are faced with making some death-defying choices of sacrifice, bravery and stupidity to get just a bit further. Gameplay is centrally derived around brief exploration, decision making and QTEs - often repeated in that order. Exploring the environment will help build towards the next set piece the plot throws up, such as finding old letters, notes, pictures or other trinkets that pushes the conversation forward.

Cutscenes are rampant in The Quarry and almost to the point where they drag on a bit too long. The conversation will always lead into a few options that are to be decided by the player, which sends the plot one way down a vast decision tree of narratives. This is more of an interactive movie than a game, but unfortunately the exploration moments feel clunky and incredibly one dimensional. Wandering around on a set path with not much else to do but to trigger the next cutscene. Fortunately, for those wanting to skip this element then there is a dedicated movie mode but have in mind that it does lose certain story beats that can only be pieced together by finding out info whilst exploring.

The Quarry has a strong cast of actors, of which many of them are certainly recognisable, and even the ones that are not come across very well. Each character plays a stereotype often seen in teen horror movies, but they do it so well that it makes them likeable in their own way. Ted Raimi plays the part of the sheriff extraordinarily well and former WCW Champion, David Arquette's motion capture picks up all of those facial expressions that are so key to building character. Justice Smith's character is laid back, sensible and boring, but he plays the part of a teacher's pet incredibly well. The standout performance goes to Brenda Song's, Kaitlyn Ka, who is banterful and is far more street smart then the rest of the motley crew that is around.

However, on Steam Deck, The Quarry has been a bit of mess, with the game sometimes working but other times it doesn't. This review is much later than anticipated due to the 2K launcher on Steam causing issues, but even when it does boot the terrible lighting and blurry textures are really off-putting. It is recommended to play this on console or a higher-powered PC than on Steam Deck.