Supermassive's next game will be another horror "equivalent in size" to The Quarry
“I do like the luxury of being able to really explore characters and you get that with a longer story."
The Quarry developer Supermassive has confirmed it's already commenced work on its next game and yes, it's going to be the "same sort of horror" as its predecessors.
In an interview with our friends at VGC, studio director Will Byles said that while he wasn't sure "how far [the team] could stretch the teen horror thing out further", another horror is on the way in either 2025 or 2026, and it will be the equivalent size of The Quarry rather than follow the episodic format of its anthology series, Dark Pictures.
“We’ve started working on [the next game],” studio director Will Byles told VGC. "I can’t really tell you very much at all about it, but we have started. Again, it’s the same sort of horror genre, we’re sticking to that. It’s equivalent in size to The Quarry… and that’s about as much as I can say without giving too much away.
"I don’t know how far we can stretch the teen horror thing out further, because especially when we try to stir it up, the number of surprises you can add to that becomes limited."
Interestingly, Byles reflected upon the differences of storytelling through short games and longer ones, and confirmed that with longer titles like Until Dawn and The Quarry, it's easier to delve deeper into the motivations of characters and "explore relationships".
"I do like the luxury of being able to really explore characters and you get that with a longer story," he added. "It annoys some people, because they get bored with it, but I really like the fact you can go in-depth with the characters and explore relationships in a way that’s harder on a shorter story."
As for when we may finally get to play it?
"It certainly won’t be the seven years it took between Until Dawn,” Byles said. “It will be 2025, or maybe 2026."
"The Quarry is everything we've come to expect from Supermassive's deliciously bloody brand of horror," I wrote in Eurogamer's The Quarry review. "There are supernatural stalkings, life-and-death decisions to make, quick-time events, and plentiful gory deaths, and it's all wrapped up in jaw-dropping graphic fidelity that is so realistic, sometimes you'll forget it's a game. Its characters - traditionally so irritating, it's hard to find the will to keep them alive - are surprisingly likeable here, even if half of them spend most of the game drenched in blood and looking like a post-prom Carrie.
"The world you explore - an all-American summer camp that could've been ripped from an '80s slasher - is every bit what you would expect. Throw in a fabulous script and natural voice performances, and The Quarry just might have been Supermassive's greatest game to date."