We never really know what the future of video games will bring. Unlike other artistic media, our greatest achievements have always been technological. The best game of the year would probably have been impossible to create a decade earlier. While we are seeing new filming techniques being developed in movies and new forms of recording in music, only games keep improving and as such never really know where they are going. Our obsession with technological progress has some drawbacks (we’re ashamed of our history, plunge into rework, and blind too easily with shiny, pretty objects that we too rarely think about anything else), but it also makes gaming one of the most unpredictable and exciting media. Playing The Quarry, I feel proof of it.
The Quarry is a decent game, and like all the other Supermassive offerings, it will be fondly remembered by horror fans, but won’t tear up any trees in the games as a whole. It won’t be in the mix for anything important at The Game Awards, and when we look back on 2022 in the future, it will be drowned out by the Elden Ring, God of War Ragnarok, and even Horizon Forbidden West. It’s just a good game that is pretty good, and that’s all it has to be. But if you describe to someone all the games that came out this year 20 years ago, The Quarry will feel like the future.
The Quarry is an interactive movie where you and your friends control every character played by the main stars, and every decision you make affects the outcome of the game. Any character can die and everyone can be saved – it all comes down to you. This kind of interactive storytelling is exactly what we thought the games would turn into games, but the gaming appeared elsewhere. For example, such as The Last of Us Part 2 have much stronger, more impactful stories than The Quarry, even though the player’s agency hardly matters at all. This is just a story that happens to us, and at first glance, it doesn’t take advantage of what a video game might be. However, we all agree that this is a “better” video game than The Quarry.
It’s not to put aside the Quarry. He’s great at what he does and we need games that will want to explore different paths of this medium. But we thought something like this would happen in the future when it turned out to be just another game. Over the years, games have evolved in many ways, but weirdly endearing is that the games we consider the pinnacle are the ones that move us the most. As the games progressed, so did the depth. We might not have had so many rich stories in games if they weren’t able to recreate the movie, but it will be fascinating to see where the games are going.
While The Quarry isn’t the pinnacle of games, it’s still a pretty great experience, and we’ve got a couple of other Dark Pictures games to follow – the upcoming one also features arguably the game’s greatest descendant of Oscar-nominated Jessie Buckley. This specific style of play is constantly evolving, and FMV titles are experiencing a revival thanks to the work of Jack Attridge and Sam Barlow. Besides, will the games further refine their storyline? Will it come together or as part of new solutions?
3D was a fad of filmmaking, but maybe games could benefit more from it. It probably won’t be NFT crap on Polium One, but who knows what the future of gaming might be? We all thought it was going to be games like The Quarry, and what is perhaps the most exciting is that games that seem unimaginable today could be your round for the Double A title in 15 years.
Next: The Last Of Us Part 1 has just gone gold – so where’s the gameplay?
