Even years after my last unalloyed school break, as soon as June hits, everything seems to go slower, softer. Daytime stretches into late, mirthful sunsets like it did when I was a kid at camp. But I’ve realized that these hot months no longer mark that idyllic time in childhood when it’s okay to let my guard down. Mosquitoes hover over their lazy targets until they land for one long, bloody drink. No one is coming to smack them away and protect you, especially not in the interactive drama horror The Quarry, Supermassive Games’ new summertime successor to Until Dawn.
The Quarry has you play from the alternating point-of-view of nine camp counselors as they’re pushed into a long night of danger, gore, and paranoia on their last night at Hackett’s Quarry Summer Camp. Standard teen stuff, really, but with deadly stakes.
Players must guide the characters to safety (or not) by completing quick-time events and making split-decisions, avoiding or giving into ideas that the game’s adults and real-life horror icons, including Travis Hackett (The Evil Dead’s Ted Raimi), Chris Hackett (Scream’s David Arquette), and fortune-teller Eliza (Twin Peaks’ Grace Zabriskie), zap into their heads.
It’s a lot for a normal kid at camp to handle, especially when you’re already dealing with more pressing things, like wondering if your camp’s patent misunderstood dream boy likes you back. But you shouldn’t suffer alone, so I’ve whipped up these 10 tips to inform your first playthrough of The Quarry in a kind of meta act of counselor guidance. Get a cold compress for your bug bites.
Play your own way
Playing The Quarry with no modifications involves 10 hours of story and choose-your-own adventure pathways that determine which of the 186 endings (!) you’ll receive. The rest of this guide assumes that you’re playing the standard single-player mode, but if you’d prefer not to play alone or under too much stress, the horror game offers some options.
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It is streamer-friendly with a “streamer mode” that eliminates any instances of Ariana Grande and other copyrighted music, so you’re safe to play with bloodthirsty Twitch audience eyes glued to your screen. If you prefer only your eyes to be glued to your screen, you can also enable the game’s movie mode that converts The Quarry into a 10-hour monster mash.
Movie mode has its own set of options—you can choose between an ending where everyone lives, an ending where everyone dies, a “gore fest,” or click on Director’s Chair to tailor each counselor’s personality to your preferred qualities. This will affect the choices they make in the movie, to their success or detriment. Sit back and relax as your personalized characters die slow deaths.
But if you and a friend would like to personally deliver the counselors to their slow deaths, you can take advantage of The Quarry’s couch co-op. Choosing this game option allows groups to assign a counselor to each player and pass the controller when the game switches to that counselor’s POV, something that could help each character transform into a true individual, not a simple byproduct of your clumsy quick-time responses.
Prepare for it to get dark
Literally. I played this game entirely next to a large, curtain-free window.
Opening the window and letting in the balmy summer breeze made for a good 4D gaming experience, but you should be aware that The Quarry has a lot of pitch-black environments. The glare from my window, though certainly cutting-edge and 4D, made walking and finding pertinent clues unreasonably difficult. Keep this in mind if you’re playing on a device with finicky brightness or are in a light room.
Stop and touch the bloodstains
Occasionally being unable to see my surroundings was frustrating because 90% of The Quarry’s actual gameplay is clomping around and picking things up.
The game encourages you with achievements to find things, as many…