The counselors are broken down into the typical archetypes to help players get an easy feel for the group dynamics. Jacob is the himbo, Emma is the queen bee, Abigail is the shy girl, Ryan is the sardonic guy, Kaitlyn is the sarcastic one, Dylan is the underachiever, and Nick is the nice guy. While they all dip into times of teasing and bagging on each other, the characters tend not to stray too far for their core personalities. Jacob and Kaitlyn are established as being longtime friends who are more known to trade snark and butt heads, especially when their potential romances with Emma and Ryan, but their connection is solid and believable. Abigail and Emma are a breath of fresh air in being girls who, despite being opposites, are best friends without an ounce of animosity between them. They tease one another as well, but it’s displayed as being close, and they have each other’s best interests at heart. Dylan, Nick, and Ryan are a group of loners, which shouldn’t be a thing but kind of works, in that they’re on the fringe of the groups but are also accepted and friendly with the other counselors involved.
With some options on the table, the characters were given no choice but to act out of character for the sake of pushing the plot forward.
The characters are as engaging in some chapters as they are flat in others and while they sometimes have moments of vulnerability and introspection, in the end only a few have the space to grow and become more rounded while others remain static. This could also be because the game in some places puts more focus on certain characters, letting players control them more than others, but the story behind them was also lacking in ways that didn’t do those that fell behind any favors.
Where The Quarry fell flat was how the characters were given their personalities, but the choices presented to them didn’t always reflect them. With some options on the table, the characters were given no choice but to act out of character for the sake of pushing the plot forward. Sweet-natured characters were forced to be more aggressive in their delivery for one choice and one character who was presented as having feelings for another, when a choice was selected, then said his feelings were actually built out of pity. In some places, the character motivation even went out the window for the sake of the story, which could leave the players confused as to the sudden change.
Another low point is the addition of romance for the characters. Of course, leaving a bunch of hormone-riddled teenagers alone at a campsite would easily leave them space for romantic encounters, some of them just weren’t needed. I didn’t find myself engaged or caring about the romantic entanglements of the characters, and some of them could have been left out altogether because they added nothing to the story. It also doesn’t help that the relationship status bar that was a big influence on Until Dawn was taken out altogether, so seeing people’s relationships towards one another rise or fall based on certain choices had little effect on the world or motivations. Some scenes are cute and make you want to root for the pairings, while others are eye roll worthy. The game relies a little too much on the entanglements to put characters in certain places and would benefit from having a better balance between romantic and platonic interactions against the story.