Fans of 80s horror, cinematic storytelling, and Quick-Time Events all had something to celebrate with the release of Supermassive’sThe Quarry.Like its 2015 hitUntil Dawn,The Quarrybets everything on the quality of its characters and storytelling. For the most part, that’s a winning bet.
The Quarryemphasizes choices and the consequences of those choices above all else. Whether it’s choosing between sarcasm and sincerity or which path to take to avoid a bloodthirsty killer, the player has a lot to think about, andThe Quarry’sunique approach to saving only makes the game more interesting. Here’s everything the player needs to know about saving the game.
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There Is No Save Button
Saving in video games is typically handled in one of two ways. The first method offers a Save button on the pause menu. The second method allows the player to save only in certain locations, such as at a typewriter, home base, or campfire.The Quarry,by comparison, follows neither of these trends. Indeed,there’s no way forThe Quarryplayers to manually save their game.
Instead,saving is handled automatically through an auto-save system. On the plus side, this means the player will never lose progress just because they forgot to save the game. While it may seem like a downside to deny the player the ability to manually save, Supermassive made that decision for a reason.
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The Advantage Of Not Saving
From open-world games to corridor shooters to cinematic storytelling games likeThe Quarry,choice is always important. Whether it’s where to go, what to kill, or who to talk to, choices matter, and it’s their consequences that make it so. A choice is meaningless if all the options lead to the same result, and it’s equally meaningless if the player canundo the consequences of their bad decisionjust by reverting to an earlier save.
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The Quarry’sdecision to allow auto-saves only is very much intentional because it forces the player to endure the consequences of their choices. Hurt someone’s feelings? Keep going. Let a friend die? Live with it. Without this harsh system in place, decisions would mean far less, and in a game likeThe Quarry,that change would be crippling.
When Do Auto-Saves Occur?
So if the player isn’t allowed to save the game, when does the game save itself? The good news is that auto-saves occur frequently and reliably. The game auto-saves during the transition from one scene to the next. When the screen goes black, the player completes a Quick-Time Event, or the player reaches the end of the chapter, the game saves.
It also saves whenever the character speaks with the fortune-teller between chapters. Though the player could quit the game and take a break after any one of these auto-saves, taking a break right after speaking with the fortune-teller is arguably best, since it provides a natural resting point in the narrative, so calling it a night there doesn’t lead to the kind of jagged play experience that one might have otherwise.
Multiple Save Files
A small but important side note is that althoughThe Quarrydoesn’t allow for the manipulation of saves within a single playthrough, it does allow the player to maintain multiple saves for various runs.
This means the player can start a new game and test out other branches on the game’s narrative tree without fear of losing the progress they’ve made on their other file. In all,The Quarry’sunique save system gives the player the best of both worlds, allowing for the reliable protection of their progress while still ensuring that the player can’t easily cheat the system and walk backdecisions they later come to regret.
The Quarryis available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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