How to hold your breath in The Quarry

In past Supermassive Games titles like Until Dawn, there were challenges that involved holding the controller still to hide from a monster or other threat. The Quarry does away with that, instead incorporating “don’t breathe” moments. As the name implies, these are moments where you need to hold your breath or risk things going south. You can’t freely hold your breath at any time during The Quarry, but you’ll still want to know how to successfully clear these specific challenges. Read on for all the details.

Related: How to make everyone survive in The Quarry

Don’t breathe moments in The Quarry, explained

Don’t breathe moments are clearly prompted — you’ll see a button on screen to press and hold. Successfully getting through the encounter means holding your breath until the threat has passed. The game gives you visual and audio cues as to when it’s safe to let go. First, simply watch the screen. If the monster or hunter is right on top of you, then it’s not the right time. A glowing red splash on screen indicates this. Once that redness goes away, you’re good to go. That’s also when the heart-pounding sound effect will subside.

There are three ways to potentially fail these moments however. First, if you don’t press the button to hold your breath in the first place, you’ll be caught. Second, if you let go of the breath too soon, you’ll also be caught. Finally, if you never release the button, the red bars on the side of the screen will fully tick down, and your character will let out a loud gasp. This will — you guessed it — get you caught.

Don’t breathe accessibility settings

If these moments sound too intense, or if you need some accessibility settings to help you through them, good news: The Quarry has that option. Pop open the accessibility menu, and you can set them to automatically succeed. See our list of all accessibility options in The Quarry for a full rundown.