Quarantine Zone: The Last Check Review (Xbox Series X|S & PC)

Quarantine Zone: The Last Check sheds light on the unsung heroes of apocalyptic fiction—the masked, jumpsuit-sporting figures who bear the right to divide the weak from the chaff; the dead from the living. With a Campaign that can make you feel the weight of the world and the consequences of your choices, what you have here, really, is an opportunity to play judge, jury, and executioner. Oh, and a cat owner, which you can pet, naturally.

In an effort to illuminate the responsibilities of a grunt, Brigada Games’ social deduction survival sim invites you, the casual observer, to don the helm and make calculated decisions that can ultimately shape the apocalypse. Who is fit enough to pass through the checkpoint and join the Residential Block? Who is a potential threat, and how long will it be before a small rash on the cheekbone turns into something far more dangerous? The weight of the world is in your hands, and it’s your job to ensure that the community isn’t torn apart from the inside out.

It begins with an easy task: to shine a flashlight into the eyes of unsuspecting strangers. If the eyes are yellow, you can pass them through to one of several blocks—Residential, Quarantine, or Liquidation. The problem is, wounds and possible side effects aren’t as easy to spot here. Granted, the observation process is often straightforward, as it mostly involves spotting discoloration of the eyes or skin, and inspecting the body for any signs of teeth marks. But in other cases, injuries are scarce, and the decision of whether or not to sacrifice survivors is not always as transparent. It’s merely the case of deciding who lives, who dies, and who will keep the facility from falling to the undead.

The core gameplay loop is simple here: unlock tools—flashlights, thermometers, and other useful items that can elevate your deduction skills—and inspect a group of survivors. With each NPC that you encounter, you have a choice to make, which in turn can either break your system, or propel it forward. The catch, however, is that you only have a set amount of spaces in each of the available wards. In other words, if you falsely accuse too many survivors, then you cannot condemn those who come after to the same block. Simply put, if a ward reaches its maximum capacity, then you have little choice but to allow potential threats into the community. Either that, or send them to the chopping block, which can ultimately impact your score and income.

The objective of the game is to evacuate survivors once every five days. On the fifth shift, you have the task of deciding who to assign to the Science Ward, and who to despatch to the Military. Once done, the cycle begins from scratch, with more survivors, more gadgets, and far greater threats. A simple premise, but one that also cuts surprisingly deep, as it turns out.

In addition to observing strangers, Quarantine Zone also tasks you with managing the world—an act that requires you to stock food, medical supplies, and power for your generator. With each decision that you make, you either earn money or pay the price for a miscalculated risk. For example, if you mistakenly send a healthy victim to Liquidation, then you lose money and, with that, a chance to refuel your power and upgrade various facilities. With that, you have something of a juggling act to work with. Can you earn enough cash to keep your operations going? Is there a way to fill the weekly quota with the victims in your Residential Block? The list goes on, but of course, you get the point.

While the first several days are relatively easy to work through, Quarantine Zone has a way of keeping you on your toes. For instance, once in a blue moon you have the task of squashing potential hordes and preventing them from destroying your defenses. At times like these, you have to manually operate a drone, alternate between artillery weapons, and effectively remove several waves of zombies. And I’ll be honest, these brief spells of combat can be awfully difficult to keep a lid on, especially when you’re facing hundreds of undead enemies at once. That being said, it adds an extra layer to the overall experience — and that counts for a lot here.

At its core, Quarantine Zone harbors a great survival game that is, while still visually uninspiring and in receipt of some god-awful animations, a lot of fun to explore. With a lot of tools to unlock, camp upgrades to build, and drone-based combat mini-games to play, you have a lot to sink your teeth into here over time. What’s more, you have enough choices here to make each shift your own. The world may fall to pieces, but more often than not it finds a way to keep you coming back for another bite, either in its Campaign or in its Endless mode.

As I said, visually, Quarantine Zone isn’t all that great, nor is it in possession of anything spectacular, for that matter. The voice acting is mediocre at best, as are the general gameplay mechanics. That said, it does a brilliant job of knocking its shortcomings on the head with a surprisingly diverse array of chores, tasks, and quota-based challenges for you to tackle. It might feel dull and somewhat predictable at times, but to give credit where it’s due, the tools, upgrades and tasks are certainly spaced out enough to keep you on your toes.

It goes without saying at this point, but if you are a fan of zombie games and deduction titles similar to the likes of Papers, Please, then you should be able to get your money’s worth in Quarantine Zone: The Last Check. It might not be a flawless zombie game, but it is an original one that manages to get a lot of things right. And so, on that basis alone, I’d say that it makes for a worthy investment.

Verdict

Quarantine Zone: The Last Check might have more bite than bark as a visually impaired apocalyptic sim, but that isn’t to say that it’s without the piercing touch of a well-rounded zombie survival-management game. It might not be the best undead deduction game that you’ll sink your teeth into this year, but it is one that you’ll enjoy squeezing the life out of for a handful of hours, nonetheless. Eat your heart out, Papers, Please.