Howling at the Moon

The word "quarry" has two meanings
a "rock mine" or a "hunted animal" -
Hackett's Quarry indeed!

Callisto Protocol is the hot new game out right now, but why talk about that when there's another six-month-old horror title I never got around to?  Made by Supermassive Games (the developers behind Until Dawn and The Dark Pictures Anthology), The Quarry has a lot in common with those games mechanically.  From a story perspective, it uses the classic teenagers-at-a-summer-camp setup.  Even so, it doesn't have all that much in common with the "Friday the 13th" films.  Instead, it borrows more from "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and the "Blair Witch"...plus there are werewolves.

That last bit isn't so much of a spoiler as an approximation.  While the featured creatures of The Quarry have a lot in common with lycanthropes lore-wise, they are visually quite different to what one would expect; tall, hairless and gaunt with elongated limbs.  These werewolves are uniquely disturbing to look at.  In particular, the first reveal scene presents them via some absolutely creepy shots.  All this is aided by (as is always the case in Supermassive Games) excellent use of lighting, sound and camera placement.  Sadly, the spectacle is undercut somewhat by their physical movement which can come across as rather weightless at times.  Worse still, this lack of inertia and mass extends to instances where said werewolves interact with other character models.  In other words, the kill scenes sometimes look more goofy than horrifying.  Regrettably, these animation woes also extend to some of the facial motion capture performances as well.  Maybe it's due to technical issues, or simply a lack of polish.  Hair and water effects are a bit rough too, though these are long-standing problems when it comes to video game development.  Overall, it's disappointing to see given the clear amount of attention and effort that went into other aspects of the production.

The writing, particularly when it comes to dialogue, is sharp in a way that reminds me of Oxenfree. To elaborate on that, the characters talk like actual American teens minus their most braindead colloquialisms.  That may make it somewhat inauthentic, but trust me...we are all better off because of it.  Of course, well written dialogue is never truly going to elevate the script unless it has a good cast to deliver the lines.  Thankfully, The Quarry excels here with a talented list of known (though not especially famous) actors who nail their respective parts perfectly.

Ironically, their sensitivity to water means that the
 teens could have waited out the whole werewolf
 attack on boats in the lake, though this only
 becomes apparent to them after it is too late 

The story itself is somewhat of a slow burn; taking the first two hours (approximately a quarter of its entire length) introducing a cast nearly the size of a Stephan King novel.  In fact, this is kind of a roadblock in terms of story comprehension due to several plot-important characters only having a very short amount of screen time.  Adding to the confusion are the werewolves themselves which look indistinguishable from one another.  While this may have been intentional, I think the game would have benefited from including some easy-to-spot hints about the origin of each lycanthrope via accessories or tattered bits of clothing still on them even after they have transformed.  Incidentally, the transformation scenes in The Quarry are cleverly dramatic in that they use a burst of gore to hide the model swap from character to werewolf.  I actually feel like it's a welcome change from the traditionally slow and drawn-out morphing that is typically depicted.  Having stated that, I do think it's a bit weird that when they revert back to human form they are suddenly wearing scraps of strategically placed clothing again.  To be clear, I'm not asking for nude characters here, just an eye for consistency.

While we're on the topic of consistency, I should mention that the shear number of variations and outcomes in The Quarry is nothing short of staggering.  As is the case with all recent titles by Supermassive Games, anyone can die though there's only one minor character that has (for story reasons) an unavoidable death.  Visualizing the tangled web of possible plotlines must be a nightmare unto itself, but somehow the dev team managed to keep it logical...albeit with two caveats.

The first is the the kind of pitfall I encountered many years ago playing an obscure indie game entitled Uncanny Valley.  Basically, what can happen is player-made choices lead to vital chunks of the plot being skipped over such that, by the time the credits roll, it feels like they accidently missed one or more important scenes...because that's exactly what they inadvertently did.  If you want to see an example of this, look no farther than the final part of Nexlander's Let's Play The Quarry.

Aside from the surprisingly hard-to-get "everyone dies" ending,
it's also possible to have any one of the main characters be
the sole survivor

The other issue with having a wide variety of potential endings is it makes wrapping things up pretty difficult.  The Quarry does have a string of vignettes summarizing how things stand at the conclusion, but doesn't offer much in the way of resolution outside of a pseudo-podcast over the closing credits.  It's better than nothing, but not exactly satisfying either.  Aside from a few post-launch technical issues, this is the biggest criticism I've seen leveled at the game.  In a roundabout way I guess it's a compliment since the implied meaning is a lot of players actually cared enough about the characters to want to know what ultimately happened to them.  I don't know though...maybe a little F.B.I. style watchlist report using snippets of condition-sensitive dialogue or text would have been better?  Like I said before, it's a hard thing to do well without creating a massive resource sink.  Endings are hard...and on that note, until next time!