u/theblueLepidopteran

I think The Quarry lacked seriousness, proper pacing, and character development. The death animations could be better too, but that's not really the point.

What I want to focus on is the characters, because they're carrying the conflict, the emotional weight, and ultimately the story itself. But they're far from the game's only issue.

The Quarry's trailer had a much darker and more serious tone. That was one of the main reasons I was so excited for the game before it came out. Unfortunately, what we got felt like the exact opposite.

As cliché and stereotypical as the characters in Until Dawn can be, they start revealing new layers once things begin falling apart. They grow. They react. They show sides of themselves that weren't visible at the start.

The Quarry's characters, meanwhile, barely seem affected by the horrors happening around them.

Jacob keeps talking and cracking dumb jokes even when his life is in danger, and by the end of the game he's basically back to worrying about Emma. Dylan somehow manages to keep the same sarcastic comedian personality even after losing an arm. He starts as a clown and ends as a clown with one less hand.

Kaitlyn never drops the snarky comments or the "I know better than everyone" attitude. Emma keeps making faces and acting like Emma even after being attacked by a horrifying monster. When she's about to turn into a werewolf while talking to Abi in the basement, the scene doesn't reveal anything new about her. It just reinforces exactly who we already knew she was. That's not necessarily a problem, as long as every character isn't doing the same thing.

Ryan somehow manages to keep his terrible sense of humor throughout the entire story. By the end, he's still the same painfully dull guy nobody would willingly spend a weekend with.

Then there's Laura and Max. Despite spending months trapped in what should be a terrifying situation, they often feel less like prisoners and more like teenagers grounded by their parents. Laura stays the brave, determined one even after all the impossible choices she's forced to make. Max remains... Max. A comic relief character who barely gets the chance to do anything meaningful.

Nick practically disappears once the story gets going. To his credit, at least he wasn't constantly throwing out jokes and catchphrases. Still, by the end of the game, he's basically a stranger.

Abi is the only character who consistently seems to understand how serious the situation is. Yet even she barely changes. I still can't get over the fact that she's the one character who should have become a werewolf. Watching her shy, quiet artist personality clash with a more savage and uncontrollable side could have been genuinely interesting. Instead, she stays the same shy girl with dyed hair who likes to draw.

The characters in Until Dawn have funny moments too, but when everything goes wrong, they change.

They're walking horror movie stereotypes, but as Larry Fessenden once said: "We take some stock characters and start giving them some shape."

We saw how Chris and Ashley reacted after witnessing Josh's apparent death. Chris responded to trauma with courage and selflessness, while Ashley revealed dishonesty and impulsiveness. Ashley's darker side is even more noticeable in the original game, where her Honesty stat can actually decrease when the player chooses compassionate dialogue options about the twins, subtly showing a gap between what she says and what she truly feels. Depending on the player's choices, she can also become remarkably cold, silently leaving Chris to die without lifting a finger to help him. Even though she was still in shock, her reaction revealed a certain cruelty beneath the surface in the original.

We saw Emily become both more unbearable and impressively resourceful under pressure. We saw Jessica completely lose her popular girl persona after her attack, she becomes a whole different girl. We saw how Matt's confidence as a strong athlete masked deep insecurities, whether in his jealousy toward Mike, his uncertainty around Emily, or the possibility of abandoning Jessica. (Both these don't show up much, but they still deliver a lot of character development.)

We saw Sam's bravery, but also her impulsiveness and tendency to isolate herself from the group. We saw that Mike wasn't just an arrogant popular kid. Underneath all of that, he genuinely cared about his friends.

And then there's Josh, who's complex from beginning to end.

These details are woven into the story in subtle ways, but they make all the difference.

Beyond the characters, The Quarry's overall tone never really worked for me. I could never figure out what the game wanted to be. A lot of the time it felt like the writers were pulling in completely different directions.

I think this also hurt the reveals and twists. None of them landed with the impact they could have had. The mystery surrounding Eliza and the rest of the story could have been handled much more subtly.

I didn't like that Eliza appears almost immediately. I didn't like that the game starts talking about the Hag of Hackett's Quarry right from the beginning. It gives away way too much, way too early.

While Until Dawn slowly builds its mystery and feeds information to the player in a natural way, The Quarry often feels like it's handing out answers before you've even had time to ask the questions.

Anyway, that's just my take. Everyone experiences these games differently.

What's your opinion on the characters from the game that almost became our Until Dawn 2?