Popular YouTube streamer Valkyrae who won the best live streamer award last year, was surprised while streaming the new horror game Quarry. Valkyrae is well-known for her wholesome interactions with viewers and hilarious Among Us videos with fellow streamers Sykkuno and Disguised Toast.
Valkyrae noticed the game music had been turned off as she began streaming The Quarry. A close-up shot of one of the game’s protagonists startled her as she paused to turn it on. She became agitated at the pause menu because of the extreme close-up of a moving head with its eyes twitching and lips moving.
It’s common for horror games to include jump scares in their plots. The first jump scare in Rae’s Quarry came from the pause menu, not from the story. The incident occurred in the game’s prologue’s very first scene when Max and Laura were driving toward the camp.
The chat realized the music was too low as the car meandered through the forest in the moonlight. During the cutscene, she paused the game to turn on the music. Laura’s moving head, blinking and looking around, greeted her, however. The streamer was enraged and frustrated by the uncanny likeness of the head.
The co-owner of 100 Thieves burst out laughing at first, thinking she had accidentally skipped the introductory cutscene. Her horror quickly turned to disgust at the disembodied head as she realized this was not the case.
As the song Thorn in My Side by Nik Ammar, Lucy Underhill, and Michael Orchard began to play in-game, the YouTuber couldn’t help but return to the pause menu to clarify her concerns about the head close-up.
She criticizes the graphical side of the game for the strange contortions and constant twitching movements of the eyes. Rae was arguing that the graphics aren’t up to the task of carrying such a pause screen.
Several viewers shared the streamer’s reaction to the pause screen. Some fans thought it was an unintentional jump scare, while others laughed it off. As commenters pointed out, the interaction was not born of rage, but rather of a reflexive reaction to the sudden appearance of the head.
Overall, it was a fun interaction with the game and the chat, which, it appears, appreciated Valkyrae’s amusing reactions. With 3.6 million YouTube subscribers, it’s clear that she’s popular, and her Quarry streams are no exception.
