Spooky.

This game starts out strong with some fantastic performances captured by impressive animations and graphics, but falls short due to an infuriating replay experience and an ending unworthy of the slog to get there. I don't spend much time on the aspects I like in this review, but know that I like them A LOT to put up with the ones I didn't like.

The mocap in this one is very impressive and captures some impeccable performances from the cast. I was especially impressed by how natural the movements looked for most of the scenes. But the moment of two animations seaming together was often noticeable, and the lighting between objects/characters and the setting rarely seemed to match.

The writing starts strong with many paths seeming possible for the various characters and their relationships, but by the time we reach the 3rd act, all possibilities for these relationships are narrowed to one of two endings. It parallels the level design in many of the free-roam areas: start at one point and end at one point with a bunch of crisscrossing paths in-between. And by the time you reach the slideshow ending, you'll see why. Ending critique, no story info: There's no reunion of characters, no relief of the tension that's been created. It's just a slideshow at the end of the night of who is alive and dead and how followed by a cut to credits with two small graphics that are affected by your results backed by a long, dynamic audio feature that you'll probably only enjoy if you're a fan of the actors voicing it. Not only is this underwhelming, it's very slow to go through on replays when you all a player wants is to focus on the changes from the last time they played.

And for my main complaint: Save file management. I figured out, after losing my first completed playthrough to the Chapter Select feature, that this game requires me to manually save/copy my save file if I want to branch off my choices without replaying everything ad nauseum. If you use chapter select, your save is DELETED back to the point that you select and you LOSE the Chapter Select feature until you finish a run again. Instead, making manual copies of your save is the only way to have any sort of Checkpoint to return to. The Death Replay thing is a joke. The times when I want to rewind are usually not in-the-moment life-and-death choices. It's usually because I missed a QTE because I'm multitasking while a scene plays out on my 5th time sitting through it. No matter how impressive the performance or the CGI presenting it, I'm not going to give it the same focus on my 5th time through a scene, especially when it's an exact repeat of my last time through because I messed up another QTE and had to start over once already.

If they had a feature that let me rewind by one decision at ANY point instead of on a character death, replays would be much more pleasant. And for a game who is using 186 endings as a pull to get people to play, the replay experience needs to actually feel fun, not forced, and the ending should be worthy of the work it took to earn it.

The thing is, I really do enjoy this game. I also enjoy tormenting myself, so I'll probably end up continuing to hunt down those achievos. But do I suggest others follow me down this rabbit hole? Absolutely not. Watch a streamer do it so you can rewind or zone out and not lose hours of your life for it. Over and over again.

The Quarry is a horror mov... uh sorry game, with an quite entertaining story I have to say, I honestly had some doubts at the beginning that it could be full of ass, and to be clear the story is not great but fortunately not bad at all.
As far as movies of this kind are concerned, I know almost all of them:
Nightmare On Elm Street, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, IT, House Of 1000 Corpses, Monster Man, Scream, Dead Snow, President Evil, Children Of The Corn, Jeepers Creepers, Friday The 13th, Carrie, Urban Legend, Sleepaway Camp, See No Evil, Girls Nite Out, Unhinged, Flashback, Fright Night, Brainscan...

I'd have to break it down into percentages, but don't feel like doing the math right now, but in general the mov... uh sorry the game, looks pretty good, there are some parts that don't work though. Most of the characters' facial expressions look good, but some characters' mouths look really weird. Sometimes the game also creates errors in the characters, they have scars, then they don't, then they do, all within a few seconds.
You also have to overlook the fact that all the characters seem to be constantly smearing themselves with lubricant, they're all a bit too shiny for me. And there are also a lot of unnecessary sequences, or in other words, they could have shortened it a bit more and had more playable moments, because that's where the real strength of the mov... uh game lies.
Unfortunately there were also some very illogical moments, but some of them are so stupid that it was kinda funny again.

I don't want to spoil anything, but I have to say at this point that for me the design or representation of the "monsters/creatures" failed almost completely, throughout the whole game I asked myself how this was waved through, they don't look like... and not even looking some kind of cool.
At some point the money must have run out or some idiot was too impatient and wanted to release instead of doing a few last things nicely, then maybe it would have been an absolutely great mov... uh sorry again game, because if there are scenes with water splashing, whew it's not a treat for your eyes.

Despite all of this, I really enjoyed The Quarry and I will play it again, the quick time events fit in well, soundtrack and sound design is almost flawless and convinced me very much, almost everything was done right so great job there!
Diverse dialogue options, different endings, good voive acting. So yes I can recommend it, even with the DLCs BUT only if it's on sale!! At least -75% !!!