Few subgenres of horror are as beloved as the teen slasher, and clearly Supermassive Games feels right at home. Billed as the spiritual successor to the studio's 2015 TV-style horror extravaganza Until Dawn, The Quarry promises a familiar cocktail of blood and hormones. It's up to you to (hopefully) keep them out of harm's way as they run around in the dark, stalked by some gruesome, death-obsessed entity. As long as you have some common sense about horror films, you should feel right at home in this one.

At issue here are a group of high school students who have come to work as counselors at Hackett's Quarry Summer Camp. While the prologue chapter describes how two counselors arrive one night early and receive unpleasant hospitality, the bulk of the plot unfolds two months later, at the end of the summer, as the other seven counselors are packing up to leave after having a good time. However, the engine of the minibus won't start and they find they have to spend one more night. Without explaining why, he instructs the gang to stay home for the night no matter what, and they drive off. So the heroes decide to throw an outdoor party.

From here, for a while, "Quarry" is content to take things slowly and spend a couple of hours out of the ten hours without any real danger. As the group goes about their various errands and gets involved in petty squabbles, they bounce back and forth between characters, making decisions for their current charges that may later result in a capital "C". This is a very steady and sometimes protracted process, but it is well rewarded when the pattern continues in the middle of the game and the threat of deadly danger is added.

This is because, as in "Until Dawn," the characters are the greatest weapon in "The Quarry," and it is impossible not to become attached to them. Once again, these characters derive from horror movie archetypes - the party-loving jock, the shy arty type, etc. - but the nuanced characterizations, relationship frictions, and finely embroidered plotlines quickly push them off their predictable course and, in their own way, make them likable. The possibility of impending death has a habit of drawing out the hidden insecurities of cocky types and pushing self-centered individuals into protective roles. An additional flavor is provided by the fact that there are a series of NPCs whose motives are not immediately clear, and your decisions affect their fates as well.

It also doesn't hurt that all of these people look and sound all too believable. Thanks to strong voice acting and outstanding modeling and animation, "Quarry" is littered with moments that make you forget you're not watching a live-action film. Sure, the uncanny valley remains insurmountable, especially the mouth and teeth, but the generational shift from "Until Dawn" is clear (the only performance issues I experienced were a brief judder at the beginning of a scene and a sudden change in lighting on low-level settings )

As for the script, don't expect anything too introspective or meta, but for a story about teenagers fighting for their lives in the woods, the dialogue is what you would expect, with a sharp mix of emotion, wit, and outrage. My only complaint is that there is little mystery this time around as to the identity of the game's main threat. When it is finally revealed what they are up against, you will spend several hours waiting for them to catch up. Clearly, these counselors have not seen enough horror stories.

The bigger bump, however, comes from how "Quarry" inserts the audience into its macabre production. In that regard, there is no major evolution from "Until Dawn" or Supermassive's latest "Dark Pictures Anthology," and much of the player input serves to isolate the player from the horror rather than enhance it. For example, in the sections where the player directly controls the character, simply scouring for clues or glowing button prompts parked on doors is akin to vacuuming a carpet. Since nothing significant happens in these sequences, leaving the character unarmed and alone or unclothed takes away the sense of vulnerability that the plot sets up.

On the other hand, patches of on-rails action, where one must press a button or perform a QTE on demand, are oddly boring: the QTEs always follow the same timing and incorporate only four major movement directions, making it nearly impossible to fail, and when the QTE appears on screen The Quarry offers a wealth of accessibility options to simplify these sections.

Thus, a sense of agency depends on the abundance of 50-50 choices: agree or disagree, run or hide, shoot or hold your fire. Indeed, all four character deaths I experienced in my first playthrough occurred in such situations, whether due to errors of judgment or coin-flip choices. But as harsh a punishment as these outcomes may seem, this is where The Quarry excels most as an interactive horror game. The realization that a split-second decision might come back to bite you in the face induces panic, and as it pushes on and on toward the finale, your heart rate really accelerates along with your brain as it tries to guess the logic of the game. The bloody violence that ensues when you fail is the red icing on the cake. The first death, after coasting through several chapters, was the highlight of the game, a genuine shock that shook the entire experience.

But there are caveats to that part of the game that no horror movie can mimic. When any character can die at various points during the game, and dozens of possible final forms are possible, the complex relationship arc established early on rarely comes to a satisfying conclusion. Instead, the storyline tends to fizzle out, with no intention of ultimately realizing the initial hook. Aside from the shock value and realism of a three-dimensional character being abruptly tossed aside, as a writing form, it is akin to coming to a complete stop in the middle of a sentence.

Supermassive has sharpened its branching ghost train formula over the last seven years to such a brilliant degree that one of its characters can stumble and pierce over it. The only progression from past productions, however, is top-class production values. The fidelity of the plot, acting, and visuals is worth a leg up, as are some of the shocks, but more than ever it seems like a protective pad between scripted thrills. You may feel right at home in this "Quarry," as if it were your own home. But when did I ever under the illusion that relaxing could be the best horror?