Supermassive Games, the studio behind the interactive horror games Until Dawn and The Dark Pictures Anthology, has announced a new drama called The Quarry. Just like the studio’s previous games, The Quarry is a teen-horror narrative game where every choice you make shapes the story and determines who survives the night. And, just like the previous games, The Quarry stars an iconic ensemble cast of Hollywood stars and celebrities.
Following today’s announcement and a chat between POPSUGAR Gaming and Will Byles, the creative director at Supermassive Games, we’ve rounded up everything we know about The Quarry in one easy place.
What Is The Quarry About?
The Quarry takes place on the last day of summer camp, when the teenage camp counselors of Hackett’s Quarry throw a party to celebrate. But things quickly take a turn for the worse. The teenagers are hunted by blood-drenched locals who emerge from the woods — and something far more sinister. The party unravels into an unpredictable night of horror, and they’ll be forced to make unimaginable life-or-death decisions to survive the night.
The summer camp setting gives The Quarry an ’80s vibe almost like Friday the 13th, but Byles confirms that it’s set now. “We’ve got this slight anachronism that goes on within the game. It’s set in modern era because we want modern values and contemporary dialogue and interactions and relationships. But a lot of the stylisation is almost ’80s so that we get that kind of teen horror feel … We definitely wanted to keep that feel but we didn’t want views that the old ’80s style horror would have.”
What Is an Interactive Horror Drama Game?
If you’ve never played Until Dawn or any of the games in The Dark Pictures Anthology, you’ve probably never played a game like The Quarry before. That’s because Supermassive Games have almost created their own genre with these games, which Byles describes as “a kind of playable horror movie.”
In The Quarry, you’ll play as each of the nine camp counselors in a thrilling cinematic tale, where every choice you make shapes the story from a tangled web of possibilities. “You [control] every single little dialogue that you have when you’re controlling the character,” Byles says. “Every time a conversation comes up, you choose which way you go. It’s kind of like each character has a kind of dual arc. There’s the kind of douche-y version you could be, or you could be a kind of heroic version. And it just it comes down to how you want to play it.”
As a result, The Quarry will play out differently for everyone, or even differently in your first and second playthroughs. Byles says there’s around “a hundred and eighty six different endings” depending on your choices.
The best way to play a Supermassive horror game is couch co-op, with each player controlling their own character. That player can then shape their character’s storyline, but might also be responsible for choices that save or doom another character.
Who Is in The Quarry?
Some of the most iconic horror actors are in The Quarry, including David Arquette (Scream franchise), Lance Henriksen (Aliens) and Lin Shaye (A Nightmare on Elm Street).
“You kind of need that gravitas,” Byles says, speaking about why Supermassive cast Hollywood actors in their games. “They vacillate between goodies and baddies in their own careers and roles, so it’s good for keeping people on their toes.”
Also joining the cast is Ariel Winter (Modern Family), Justice Smith (Jurassic World and Detective Pikachu), Brenda Song (Dollface) and more.
Can You Kill Everyone in The Quarry?
Just like in previous Supermassive games, it will be possible to kill every playable character in The Quarry. It’s also possible to keep everyone alive, and Supermassive Games has added a new feature to help you do that.
“We give you three lives,” Byles says. “There’s hundreds of deaths, so three lives isn’t gonna make a big difference. But if you do something where you accidentally go “Oh, I didn’t want to do that” we’ll give you a chance to rewind.”
There’s an interesting catch in The Quarry that you’ll have to balance with the Death Rewind system, though: some outcomes, especially character deaths, are determined by a decision that’s made much earlier in the game. If you try to reverse an outcome like this, the game will tell you how far back you’ll have to rewind before you can confirm or play on. The Death Rewind system will unlock after your first completion of the game.
Is The Quarry Multiplayer?
Yes. You can play The Quarry with friends in online play, where invited players watch along and vote on key decisions. Or you can play together in a party horror couch co-op experience, where each player picks a counselor and controls their actions, passing the controller along when the story switches to the next character.
What are the Accessibility Features in The Quarry?
Supermassive Games want anyone to be able to play The Quarry with anyone else, no matter what level of experience they have with games, and they’ve also made sure you can customise the controls to suit your needs. “A barrier to entry for some sort of entertainment shouldn’t be your ability to do a bunch of stuff,” Byles says.
Difficulty settings are adjustable for every player, even if you’re playing couch co-op. Quick Time Events can be turned off, and you can even set whether you want to automatically pass them all, pass most of them or have random results. You can also get rid of shooting, locomotion and exploration for any player.
You can even turn them all off for every player, and then watch The Quarry as a movie. “Even then you can [choose whether you] have a happy ending or a really bad ending,” Byles says. “But you can also pick every one of the characters and dial in their personalities. You just just go, this person’s clumsy and a little bit irascible — there’s like four or five different things you can adjust on their personality — and adjust all of them and then just let them go and see what happens.”
What Is The Quarry Release Date?
The Quarry release date is June 10, 2022. It’ll be available on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X and Series S, Xbox One and PC via Steam. The standard edition and deluxe edition are available for pre-order now, which gets you the Horror History Visual Filter Pack as a bonus.
What’s Included In The Quarry Deluxe Edition?
The deluxe edition includes the full game, the ’80s Throwback outfits for the camp counselors, Gorefest option in Movie Mode and the Horror History Visual Filter Pack, which lets you play The Quarry with an 8mm-style film grain, a retro VHS aesthetic or the classic black-and-white cinematic filter.
You’ll also get instant access to Death Rewind, allowing you to use the three extra lives in your first playthrough. It’s a bit sneaky locking this feature off for a full run of the game in the standard edition, especially since Supermassive Games put so much emphasis on being able to tailor the difficulty for every player. But characters dying surprising and grizzly deaths is a signature part of Supermassive games, and accidentally killing off your character without any way to undo it doesn’t spoil the fun of the game.
Watch The Quarry Trailer Here
Here’s the first official trailer for The Quarry. It shows lots of spooks and scares, and gives us a few hints about the threats we’ll be facing in the game. We also see the celebrities rendered in incredible detail!
