Taking place over the course of one night from hell, The Quarry lets you play as nine camp counsellors and make decisions for them that could mean life or death.
It’s the end of summer camp and the counsellors, having just sent the kids home, are saying their goodbyes, until an engine mishap with their van leaves them stranded overnight while their camp leader heads to town for help. Determined to make the most of their last night together, they plan a party: “one last epic bonfire blowout for all time.”
The party quickly takes a turn, however, when they’re attacked by a strange creature and blood-soaked hunters. Split up and cut off from the outside world, they have to take extreme measures to try to understand what’s happening and how to stop it — or at least how to survive the night.
Every decision you make in The Quarry has a cascading effect on the story, including who lives and who dies a grizzly death. At the same time, QTEs test your reflexes under pressure and can mean the difference between a character making a heroic escape and falling to their death.
To honour our favourite horror game of the year, we decided to look back on the nine playable characters and rank them from worst to best — or, more specifically, according to how upset we’d be if we accidentally (or “accidentally” in some characters’ cases) failed a QTE and got them killed.
A quick warning for anyone who hasn’t finished The Quarry at least once: we’re going to be getting into major spoiler territory for some of the characters here.
The Quarry Characters, Ranked From Worst to Best
#9 Nick
Australian softie Nick, played by Evan Evagora, started off strong, but quickly went downhill after he was bitten by a werewolf. After spending the first few chapters in a cute “will they, won’t they” relationship with Abi, Nick becomes territorial and all-round creepy before he transforms. At one point he tells her “I want to taste you” as he refuses to let her go, cementing his status as the worst character in The Quarry.
#8 Jacob
Lovestruck himbo Jacob has a heart of gold and abs of steel. Unfortunately, it’s entirely his fault you’re in this mess to begin with. The sweet baby bird gets it into his head that he’ll be able to win over Emma, the girl he had a ‘no strings attached’ summer fling with, if they can spend one more night together, so he sabotages the van’s engine.
He couldn’t know that monsters would descend on the camp that night — but he did know that Emma wasn’t interested in dating him and still stranded her and five other friends away from home in an attempt to change her mind. What is wrong with men? (In this game and in general)
#7 Max
Poor Max. The ninth camp counsellor barely gets any screen time, after being attacked in the first act and locked up in a cell for the whole summer. When we do finally get to play as Max, it’s at the end of the game when he wakes up in his human body again and has a choice between waiting to be rescued or swimming for shore — where he’s attacked and killed instantly. Max would probably rank higher but alas, we hardly knew ye.
#6 Ryan
For most of the game, Ryan gives off the vibe that he’s involved with the bad guys somehow. When he’s not being reluctant to investigate their camp leader’s shifty behaviour, he’s aggressively distrustful of other characters. Turns out he’s just a private guy, possibly high for the whole game and also crucial to the group figuring out what’s going on at Hackett’s Quarry — so no harm, no foul.
#5 Emma
Subverting the Final Girl stereotype of horror movies, Emma is beautiful and popular — and not hugely important to The Quarry endings.
Although she’s set up to be one of the major characters at the start of the game, she quickly gets separated from the group and ends up in her own B-plot. There are a lot of ways Emma can die during Chapter 4, but most of them are variations of being mauled by a werewolf. What makes this so disappointing is that Emma becomes a badass if you succeed these QTEs, but then you still don’t get another chance to play as her until a short-lived encounter in Chapter 6. Perhaps her most satisfying moment is in Chapter 10, if Jacob chooses to tell her the truth about the van and she calls him out for not respecting her decision to end things.
#4 Abi
Abi has one of the most brutal deaths in The Quarry, which makes it all the more upsetting if you accidentally get her killed. Before Nick transforms into a werewolf, Abi has the chance to shoot him — if she takes the shot, her almost-boyfriend transforms and runs away, but if she hesitates, Nick transforms and decapitates her. Abi can die at a few other moments during the game, but this is by far the most bloody.
#3 Laura
Laura is the first character you play as, and seems very intelligent and soft-spoken. She spends most of the game locked in a cell with Max, but becomes the main character in the second half of the game when you play as her during a series of flashbacks that shows how she escaped, lost an eye and became a grizzled hunter determined to end the werewolf curse of Hackett’s Quarry, whatever the cost. The chapters when you play as Laura are some of the most intense in the game, so it’s easy to fail a QTE or make a bad decision that gets her killed. But it’s extremely satisfying to kill a werewolf, a villainous hunter, end the curse and survive the night as Laura.
#2 Dylan
So many awful things happen to Dylan that it would truly be heartbreaking to cause him more pain by failing a QTE. After he’s bitten by a werewolf in Chapter 5, Dylan begs Ryan to shoot his hand off with a shotgun to stop the infection from spreading. That stops him from transforming, until his other arm is bitten in Chapter 8. Dylan can die in Chapter 9, when a werewolf tears both his arms off and crushes his neck.
Supermassive Games is a monster for making Dylan one of the best characters in The Quarry and making it so hard to keep him safe.
#1 Kaitlyn
Kaitlyn, played by Brenda Song, has the biggest 180 of any character in The Quarry. She seems like a mean girl at the start, but quickly proves she’s the most level-headed counsellor and integral to the rest of the group surviving. She’s also a good friend to Dylan, Ryan and Abi, even though she and Dylan know that they both have feelings for Ryan.
Kaitlyn is the best character in The Quarry and also has the most deaths out of any of the character, most of which are avoidable if you’re quick and make smart decisions under pressure — but are all upsetting if you accidentally fail thanks to her character’s standout moments. She can also die in the end game if other characters make poor decisions, which is even more devastating if you’re playing in couch co-op mode and another player is responsible for getting her killed. Protect Kaitlyn at all costs.
The Quarry is available now on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC.
Read more POPSUGAR gaming content below:
- Is ‘Tears of the Kingdom’ a Prequel to the First Ever Zelda Game? Lore Experts Think So
- “She’s a Top”: Anna Torv Answers All Our Questions About Tess In HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’
- 5 Games to Play Before Declaring ‘The Last of Us’ the GOAT
- Elden Ring Detectives Have Some Wild Theories About the DLC — Here Are the Best Ones
- Joel Finally Called Ellie “Baby Girl” In ‘The Last of Us’ and Fans Are Not Okay
