Review: Quarantine Zone The Last Check
- Guilherme Ribeiro
- Jul 25
- 4 min read
Are you infected?
THE GAME
Quarantine Zone: The Last Check is a post-apocalyptic management game developed by Brigada Games and published by Devolver Digital. You are tasked with managing a checkpoint in a city overrun by zombies. It's up to you to decide which survivors are fit to be rescued or to eliminate those already infected by the zombie virus. Using a variety of resources, check all survivors and decide their fate.
MY IMPRESSIONS
The idea behind Quarantine Zone: The Last Check is quite interesting for games of this liberation/prohibition genre. It combines interesting search and analysis mechanics with simple base management, with goals to be met, which gives the player a direction on the intended objective and the required challenge. I like how the game doesn't rush you to check the survivors, since many games would put a time limit to speed things up and make it even more difficult; however, Quarantine Zone: The Last Check has many mechanics at the same time that add up and complicate the analyses, and if there were a time limit, it could be very frustrating. Therefore, the player is free to take as long as they want and do whatever they want during their day in the game.
The survivor analysis mechanics are quite varied, with some being more interesting than others. In particular, those that are unlocked last are the least interesting, most complicated, and tedious to use. It's essential to use all available analysis tools to ensure a good assessment and earn research points to upgrade your equipment, making it easier to check if everything is in order. Once you detect something in a survivor, you can mark the discovered characteristics on a checklist to determine their level of danger. If they only have green-level symptoms, signs, or behaviors, they are free of the zombie virus and can enter the survivor area. If it's orange, it's an alert for that person, who may either develop the virus or simply get rid of the symptoms; therefore, it's preferable to send that survivor to quarantine and wait to see what happens. You can visit the quarantine area and reassess the survivors there. If they've improved, they can go to the survivor area, but if the virus has progressed, you'll soon see the damage. Finally, red means that person is beyond saving, so you send them to be eliminated. The game is in Brazilian Portuguese, which makes it easier to learn all the mechanics and understand how they work, since there's quite a bit to learn, even if it's simple. You can also send survivors with unknown symptoms to the lab and, in exchange for that person's sacrifice, you discover new symptoms to identify in future survivors. This is a basic game cycle; every day will be like this, adding mechanics as the days go by, until the day comes when you can send survivors to the scientists and earn research points or send them to the army and earn money, used to improve your base.
In addition to the gameplay cycle mentioned above, you have to manage your base, providing resources such as food, shelter, and energy to keep everything running. It's a very simple system, but it's there as an addition to make sense within the game's theme. From time to time, hordes of zombies attack your base in the early morning, and you, using a military drone, must stop them by shooting at waves of zombies that appear and try to destroy the base walls. Just like the base management system, these attacks provide a break from the normal gameplay cycle, like a minigame to coolly break the rhythm, while also keeping everything consistent with the zombie theme.
The biggest problem with Quarantine Zone: The Last Check is its pacing. While it's good in the first few hours, adding many mechanics, not all of which are as fun or dynamic as the initial ones, makes everything feel very dragged out. Even though you can use research points to improve your equipment and make diagnoses easier, you'll still have to use everything at your disposal to ensure your check is a complete success. Add to that huge lines of survivors, and you get tired very quickly. Overall, it's a game with good ideas and interesting mechanics, but it's perhaps best played in short bursts to avoid getting bored so fast.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Theoretically, most achievements in Quarantine Zone: The Last Check can be obtained in a single playthrough, as many achievements are tied to advancements and new mechanics introduced in the game, as well as specific actions like killing rats roaming the base or breaking lamps. However, to get all the achievements, you will need at least two complete playthroughs, since you need to get both the good and bad endings. It won't be too difficult, but it may take some time and effort to achieve 100% of the achievements.
CONCLUSION
I started Quarantine Zone: The Last Check having a lot of fun, with new mechanics being introduced each day that began in the game. Simple and quick mechanics that made the game enjoyable to play. As time passed and many more mechanics were introduced, the game became tiring. The final equipment is unnecessarily tedious to handle. Each day of the game became more drawn out and time-consuming to finish. And so I slowed down the pace of the game and it gradually lost me. I really liked Quarantine Zone: The Last Check, but it loses much of its freshness after the beginning. Still, it's a fun game that brings very interesting elements to the genre.
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