Video Games
Supermassive Explains Script Process for ‘The Quarry’ and Its 186 Endings
There’s a lot that goes into the script for narrative horror titles by Supermassive Games, and The Quarry is no exception. IGN sat down with the game’s director, Will Byles, to chat about the game’s story, and its 186 endings. And no, that’s no typo.
Clocking in with a script at over 1000 pages, the story for The Quarry does lend itself to having that many endings. After all, you have nine different playable characters in the game, and the ending you get depends on the choices you make. Not to mention that the story shifts and changes depending on your choices. Still, Byles referred to the process as a “mathematical nightmare”.
“Writing a branching narrative is a really interesting exercise,” says Byles. “We write a full, hundred page screenplay as if it were a movie. We develop our character styles, and once we’ve got that, then we can start looking at how we break that out into a full 10 hour experience.”
When you take into account the branching paths players can take in a game like The Quarry, you can start to see why you would need a beefy script. Again, having two possible outcomes with nine different characters really adds up.
So how did the team do it? Byles breaks it down into two parts. First, making use of large and small decisions to ensure that not every choice creates an entirely different storyline. Second, smart placement of those choices.
“The big choices we have are these things called Paths Chosen, and those will significantly affect the story. We’ll announce it to you. You never know when that’s going to come up. You’re never warned about it and it might seem trivial, but it’s a big, big deal.”
Of course, one of the big questions is who will survive, and what will be left of them (to borrow a familiar tagline). The Quarry does make it so that you can basically kill everyone, if you so choose. “With a horror like this, my personal favorite way through it is that a fair few people die quite horribly. But you can also play it right through and you can have everyone live. It depends on what you want to play.”
You can delve more into the game’s story and the intricacies of its writing from the link above. The Quarry, starring genre vets Ted Raimi, David Arquette, Lance Henriksen, and Lin Shaye, arrives June 10 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Xbox One, and PC via Steam.
And check out our own interview with Will Byles.
The rumoured cuts at Xbox have come to fruition, with plans to lay off 3,200 employees. In addition, five studios are also set to be let go, with Double Fine and South of Midnight developer Compulsion breaking off to go independent, while Ninja Theory (Senua) and Undead Labs (State of Decay 3) have been sold.
The fifth studio, Marvel’s Blade and Dishonored studio Arkane Lyon, is set to be divested from Xbox Game Studios, though details are still being kept under wraps.
Per Xbox Wire, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma confirmed the layoff and divestment plans at Xbox, but announced no plans for closures or game cancellations.
According to Sharma, Xbox is operating at “margins that are 3-10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses.” Sharma acknowledged Xbox’s previous pivots to Game Pass, multi-platform, and a “broader portfolio of content” have resulted in “meaningful value”, but it hasn’t been enough.
“Since 2018, we have aggressively expanded our studio portfolio while the number of games created each month across the industry now outpaces the last ten years combined,” she said. “We now find ourselves competing not only with the largest publishers, but also with smaller independent studios. It is neither possible nor desirable to own every great independent studio.”
As a result, Compulsion Games and Double Fine Productions “will return to management and transition to independent studios with their IP, catalog, and runway for their next games.” Meanwhile, Ninja Theory and Undead Labs “have entered terms to join new ownership with funding to complete and grow Senua and State of Decay 3.” As for Arkane Lyon, the studio’s management “is beginning required consultation with its Works Council to review potential strategic options.”
The 3,200 cuts will be made throughout Xbox’s financial year across departments, with some areas being more affected than others. This is expected to affect around 20% of the developer’s workforce.
In addition, Bethesda will also undergo “a significant overhaul”, and will pivot to focus on its core franchises: Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, DOOM, Quake, and Wolfenstein. None of our first party publicly announced games or projects are being cancelled as part of these reductions.
“These changes are about a bigger future for Xbox, not a smaller one,” says Sharma. “The next decade of gaming will be larger, more global, and more creative than anything we’ve seen before. This year, we’ll invest as much in Xbox as we ever have, but we’ll invest with greater focus, greater discipline, and greater clarity, all in service of making Xbox where the world plays and creates.”