5 video games with a branching narrative to play before The Quarry

Supermassive Games’ next video game outing is The Quarry, an interactive drama horror survival title that will be out on June 10. It features a group of teenagers stuck in a remote campsite overnight and subjected to various horrifying experiences, some juvenile, some deadly.

As is Supermassive Game’s MO, this upcoming title also features a branching narrative, where player action and choices influence how the story unfolds and which characters might survive till the end. This game supposedly provides 186 different endings, depending on the players’ decisions throughout.

While users wait for this video game’s release, they might be pleased to know that such branching narratives are also present in many different games, which they can pick and play to understand how The Quarry will function.

Note: This article reflects the writer’s opinions.

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Five branching narrative video games to try if players are interested in The Quarry

1) Until Dawn

For gamers, the closest experience to The Quarry would be another Supermassive Games outing, and Until Dawn has possibly the most similar aesthetic. This video game was released in 2015 for the PlayStation, and it was an interactive horror title featuring a group of teenagers trying to survive the night in an abandoned lodge.

Featuring various player choices and decisions with a good amount of quick-time events, the video game thus decided which characters lived to see the end or died. The game also had a system that tracks how a choice affects the relations between characters, which may progress differently based on how users choose to treat each character.

The butterfly effect choice system didn’t always have evident consequences, which might be revealed later down the story, a feature sure to return in The Quarry. Featuring multiple playable characters throughout the plot, this upcoming video game is sort of a spiritual successor to Until Dawn, presenting a very similar premise and stereotypical character tropes in horror movies.

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2) Life Is Strange: True Colors

Player choice has always been a critical factor in the Life is Strange video games, and the third main outing is not any different. True Colors was developed by Deck Nine, the minds behind LIS: Before the Storm, and was released across multiple platforms in 2021.

The game follows protagonist Alex Chen, settling into life in a new town called Haven Springs with her brother Gabe. As with all Life is Strange games, she is gifted with the ability to perceive people’s emotions and specific emotionally charged experiences.

Using this tool, gamers must make informed or intuitive decisions as the story progresses, leading to different characters experiencing various outcomes by the end. True Colors deals with themes of grief and loss and the emotions accompanying these events.

In terms of a grand narrative drive, players can always count on a Life is Strange title.

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3) Heavy Rain

Quantic Dream is another developer that weaves great branching narratives into their video games. Heavy Rain is one such installment released originally in 2010 that deals with a murder mystery story involving many different characters.

Players have four characters to play as to find and reveal the identity of the Origami killer, who has kidnapped the son of one of the playable characters. The game gives each protagonist ample opportunities to ascertain various important clues which may lead to discovering the location of the kidnapped child, if the player is clever enough.

This video game features a handful of endings, depending on what each character did or did not do during their own story. Additionally, this title possibly delivers one of the best twists in a video game ever, one that could have only received the amount of credit in a player-controlled medium.

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4) Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

Superhero games don’t generally give players many options to choose story elements for themselves, instead choosing to deliver a predetermined narrative complimenting the hero’s background. Such was not the case for 2008’s Spider-Man: Web of Shadows video game, which saw the titular superhero sporting the venom symbiote suit.

From the comics, this symbiote gives spidey a black and white makeover while making him more aggressive and selfish. The second feature of this suit made its way into the title in the form of a morality meter, which would tilt either towards a good spidey or a bad spidey, depending on specific actions done in the open world.

Also affecting this meter were choices users made in crucial moments during the story. The decisions were a simple binary option to react using the usual spidey demeanor or the symbiote’s angrier version.

While seeming insignificant at first, the game builds up to this with one of the final (and most important) choices being performed automatically based on spidey’s current mortality. Combined with the final choice in the title, this opened it up to the possibility of four endings, making Web of Shadows the most compelling Spider-Man game before Insomniac took to the stage.

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5) The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

While fully open-world RPGs generally don’t involve gamer choice-based narrative, at least at the time, CD Projekt Red changed that status quo with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Released originally in 2015 for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox, the title was the third in the series, seeing Geralt of Rivia as the protagonist.

The video game was set in an open world full of side quests and activities, yet it included a few mini-stories and NPC character arcs determined by the player’s actions. Notable ones included the fate of Kiera Metz, a sorceress whom Geralt meets, the Bloody Baron, a local ruler whose help Geralt enlists, and the faction that wins the ongoing civil war.

However, this similar system plays a vital role in the primary campaign itself, several times in fact. However, the most important one would be the fate of Ciri, Geralt’s adopted daughter, whom he’s looking for throughout half of the game.

Depending on the user’s input throughout the title, Ciri may either die, rule the entire kingdom, or return as a Witcher.

Note: This list is not in any particular order and solely reflects the writer’s opinions.