Quarantine Zone: The Last Check

You might think that manning a border checkpoint would be pretty boring business, but the exceptional Papers, Please proved that to be far from the truth when it debuted over a decade ago. Still, if you found performing background checks and shining the spotlight on truths and lies to be a bit too mundane and straightforward, the folks over at Brigada Games have cranked the premise up to new heights.

Enter, Quarantine Zone: The Last Check. This is essentially Papers, Please that trades a dystopian border crossing for that of a screening checkpoint in a collapsing city where the aim is to identify any unfortunate souls that are carrying a viral infection that turns people into mindless and violent zombies. Yep, instead of being an action hero gunning down hordes of undead, in this game, you take on an administrative role that is far more complex than one would expect.

The premise is to use your understanding of how the virus impacts humans and a suite of nifty tools to pinpoint exactly who is infected and who isn't. Towards the start of the game, it's actually quite a complicated affair as your understanding is minimal, meaning you grapple with generic symptoms and have to make calculated guesses if someone is healthy or not. You will send healthy people to execution, allow infected into your safe zone, and quarantine individuals with simple afflictions like conjunctivitis. But as the days progress and you inspect more and more humans, learning further details about the virus as you go often with the help of handy gadgets and items, it becomes much easier to notice if someone is clear or if they're a hazard. A quick glimpse might be all it takes to notice red eyes or grey skin, or maybe you need to pull out a scanner to find zombie scratches and bites under clothing, or decaying organs within someone's body. Quarantine Zone does a fantastic job of throwing curveballs at you but in a way that doesn't overwhelm, allowing you to feel like your understanding and skills are becoming better each and every day.

However, the game is perhaps a bit too ambiguous for its own good at times. There have been several occasions where symptoms and concerning traits are simply too unclear to make a firm judgement. Now this can be a huge issue as Quarantine Zone is not a very forgiving game (not that you'd expect it to be), and if you accidentally let an infected into your safe checkpoint, it might come at the cost of the lives of 10 or more survivors, an event that could cripple you financially and effectively bring the game to an end. Upgrading your gear to dispel the confusion can help, but this never changes the fact that sometimes you have to make a judgement by trusting your gut, and in my eyes, this somewhat defeats the purpose of such a game.

Plus, this applies to some of the core mechanics. There will be times where survivors appear with backpacks that must be searched to prevent people from bringing contraband into your checkpoint. As for what is regarded as contraband is oftentimes confusing, as the game will reward you for confiscating chainsaws and machine guns, but penalise you for taking away severed infected body parts or jerry cans filled with gasoline... Again, a more firm explanation would go a long way here.

But beyond these inconsistencies is a game that offers a really entertaining and fun loop. It's simple and quite repetitive in nature, but in practice it works well and makes you desperate to start a new day and begin the screening process all over again. Combining this fulfilling loop with basic simulation systems revolving around improving your camp and checkpoint, systems that are far from complex and don't give you a headache when attempting to min-max the mathematics behind it like some rival games, and you get a day-to-day experience that works like a charm. And this is without mentioning the additional mechanics that get added as the days advance, be that the research lab where you can investigate weird new symptoms and determine if you have to worry about them in future survivors, or the wave defence mini-game that is occasionally offered where you need to defend the base from hordes of zombies using a weaponised drone like you're in a Call of Duty game.

It should also be said that Quarantine Zone is an indie game of the same style as say Contraband Police, wherein visually it does leave a little bit to be desired. You certainly don't walk away from this game under the impression that it had an enormous budget, but at the same time, the gameplay, the loop, and the mechanics, they work. And that's often enough. Being an indie of this calibre does also mean the odd kink in the game's armour, and in my experience that included bugs where steps in quests would become stuck or things that were supposed to happen simply didn't. Were these frustrating? Absolutely, but they were actually somewhat uncommon, so that's a positive to take away.

Will you still find yourself immensely entertained and charmed by the loop after 15 hours? That's up for debate. But for a game that you can snag at a reasonable price tag of of £17, there's plenty that Quarantine Zone: The Last Check does right, so if you find yourself somewhat curious as to whether you have what it takes to man a screening checkpoint, then you won't go too wrong with this game.