The Quarry: Deluxe Edition

The Quarry is a fun, bloody thrill ride on your first playthrough, but its lack of interactivity and a lot of little issues drag down the whole.

The Quarry picks up where Until Dawn left off, introducing another group of personable teens you'll attempt to keep alive. Or not.

If it hadn't have been for that thoroughly unjust Rewind right at the end of my playthrough, The Quarry - with its stunning visuals, wonderful voice work, fabulous score, and intriguing plot line - would have been one of my favourite games of the year thus far, and one of the best horror romps for some time. As it stands, though, it's hard to feel anything but disappointment for a game that took all my time and effort and just discarded them without warning. It's one thing to kill off a character; it's another to kill off a player's enthusiasm.

A gripping horror story, but one where the interactive elements struggle to sustain the tension.

The Quarry is a blood-soaked, brutal, and janky summer camp rampage

A fun but poorly paced horror adventure that's both slow to start and over too fast

For the core game, I wish more of the action was in the hands of the player, but I can’t deny how enthralling the choices are, especially when they lead to absolute chaos. Once the frantic running through the woods begins, the dark mysteries and thrill of keeping people alive are powerful hooks that will keep you glued in suspense until the credits roll.

You will probably leave with several favourite characters, having glimpsed their lives beyond that one night of supernatural threats. You’re never left in doubt about what the threat actually is, and that only serves to prove that classic monster and ghost stories still work despite all their tropes, or indeed precisely because of them. The Quarry’s charming writing and cinematic presentation make it an engrossing horror caper – even if this is, paradoxically, a game that’s often at its best when you’re not actively playing it.

‘The Quarry’ is a standout slasher that takes just a few wrong turns

The Quarry is a thrilling-ish monster-movie in game form. The charismatic characters and tropey twists get this loose series of games back on a fun, classic horror trope track - with a bit of gore thrown in.