The Quarry has become one of my favorite games to play in the evenings. The interactive drama horror game takes elements of Friday the 13th, werewolf tropes, and teen slashers in an experience that makes you want to replay it. As I finished my first playthrough, my favorite part became the podcast element during the credits.
Spoilers for The Quarry ahead!
The studio behind The Quarry, Supermassive Games, is best known for Until Dawn, another interactive drama horror game. In the same vein, with The Quarry, you play as each of the nine teenage summer camp counselors who have to survive the full Moon monster attack that takes place on their last night at Hackett’s Quarry. As a character, you make decisions that impact the character development and relationships between everyone, and ultimately try to ensure your characters make it through the night (or not). All nine playable characters may survive or die depending on the player’s choices.
Our camp counselors are Laura Kearney (Siobhan Williams), Max Brinly (Skyler Gisondo), Abigail “Abi” Blyg (Ariel Winter), Dylan Lenivy (Miles Robbins), Emma Mountebank (Halston Sage), Jacob Custos (Zach Tinker), Kaitlyn Ka (Brenda Song), Nicholas “Nick” Furcillo (Evan Evagora), and Ryan Erzahler (Justice Smith).
Early on in the game, Ryan is listening to a podcast, Bizarre Yet Bonafide, which talks about the “Hag of Hackett’s Quarry.” Players interact with the “hag,” played by Twin Peaks alum Grace Zabriskie, when they get different tarot cards.
As you go through each playthrough, you can collect evidence and clues throughout the game. These may not seem important, but end up having a payoff. You see, even if you all survive the night, if you don’t gather enough evidence/clues, the counselors get arrested because it looks as if they murdered a bunch of people, rather than defended themselves against a werewolf attack.
Once you collect enough, during the credits, the Bizarre Yet Bonafide podcast will play, and it will be impacted by how many pieces of evidence and clues you guys collected. It made for a fun ending surprise, and while listening, it made me eager to play again.
I love this little addition because sometimes just finding in-game items to unlock stuff can feel tedious, and this gives it some payoff. The game boasts 186 different endings, and I’m ready to see/listen to what some of those are like.
The Quarry is not perfect and has a bit of a slow start, but as I got going, I got invested in the characters, and that made every bloodbath tragic. Anyway, I’m off to hunt some werewolves.
(featured image: Supermassive Games)
