Quarantine Zone: The Last Check is a puzzle game centered around inspecting survivors of a zombie apocalypse for symptoms of infection. Read on to learn everything we know, our review of the demo, and more.
Everything We Know About Quarantine Zone: The Last Check
Quarantine Zone: The Last Check Plot
You’re the commander at a critical military checkpoint, responsible for screening desperate survivors fleeing a city overrun by zombies. Everyone wants to get through—but not all are uninfected. It’s up to you to decide who gets in. How long can you hold the line and keep the outbreak contained? Choose wisely—lives depend on it.
Quarantine Zone: The Last Check Gameplay
Quarantine Zone: The Last Check has you play as the Commander of a checkpoint in the middle of a zombie-infested city. Your job is to screen survivors attempting to get evacuated from the danger zone, as well as to manage the daily workings of the base and defend its borders.
Rely on advanced military tech, keen instincts, and strategic decision-making to distinguish the healthy from the infected. Every error could spell catastrophe for the evacuation mission under your command.
Quarantine Zone: The Last Check Release Date
Quarantine Zone: The Last Check will release some time within September 2025. No specific release date has been announced yet.
Quarantine Zone: The Last Check Review (Demo)
Needs One Last Check, Alright
Before we begin, I have a confession: I’m not very good with the Papers, Please formula. Case in point—despite being honored with the role of the last line of defense between a zombie apocalypse and human civilization in this delightful little gem, I managed to screw up five times… almost consecutively.
That said, Quarantine Zone: The Last Check is basically what you’d get if Arstotzka from Papers, Please was fending off zombies instead of illegal immigrants. You operate an inspection booth for refugees fleeing infected parts of the city, using various tools to detect signs of infection—including a magical gun that turns clothes transparent.
Each survivor can be sent to one of three destinations. Those who appear uninfected go to the camp, where they await evacuation. If you're uncertain, you can hold them in quarantine to see if symptoms develop or fade. And those who might compromise your safety—or worse, your paycheck—can be sent to the Liquidation Zone, where they are promptly… liquidated.
Into money, presumably, since I do get paid when that happens.
Imbalanced Penalties are Hilarious and Ironically Effective
The most charming part of deciding people's fates on-screen—unlike the more poetic or symbolic choices in Papers, Please—is that whenever you don’t send survivors to the cushy camp behind you, they act like they’ve been personally betrayed by the universe.
Sure, you get monetary rewards for making the right decisions, but the most memorable moments come from your mistakes. The game doesn’t exactly haunt you for them—but it does wag its finger. Usually in the form of a small deduction to your pay, which, honestly, isn’t much.
For instance, mistakenly sending an uninfected person to the Liquidation Zone will dock a couple hundred dollars from your pay. Likewise, there’s no real penalty for keeping people in quarantine until they develop more obvious symptoms.
Some survivors also carry luggage, which you're supposed to check for contraband and zombie body parts. The game tells you to confiscate them—and only confiscate them—but it’s apparently fine to swipe golden toys, while grabbing other stuff is just a minor offense?
Anyway, while the penalties for wrongful liquidation or excessive quarantine are minor, sending an infected person to the survivor camp is another story. The game punishes you severely—not only with a scolding (rightfully so), but by killing off other survivors.
Supposedly, the infected person you “accidentally” cleared goes on to attack the others. But honestly? It feels more like the game is just pointing and laughing at you.
And I love it. In fact, the combination of light penalties for cautious decisions and harsh ones for risky calls incentivizes you to never take chances with possible infection.
It might be fun to play warden, but the game reminds you—firmly but playfully—that you’re doing it for a reason.
Base Management Needs Real Polishing
The demo version of Quarantine Zone: The Last Check features three core gameplay segments. The first is the inspection booth gameplay, where you wield life-or-death authority over scared refugees escaping the undead. It's the heart of the game—and vital once things truly go south.
Which… hopefully won’t happen in real life. Right?
Beyond that, there's a basic base management sim and, oddly enough, a base defense minigame. The latter is actually fun—you control a heavily armed drone to rain fire on helpless zombies. The base management, however, feels out of place both mechanically and narratively.
At the start, you’re introduced as a high-ranking Commander stationed at a checkpoint in a zombie-infested city to rescue survivors. That’s fair. Manually inspecting people makes sense in that context—it’s your call who lives or dies.
What makes no sense is the base management section where your role shifts to… warehouse laborer. You end up running supply errands like a glorified camp intern. Why us? Shouldn’t that be someone else’s job? Aren’t we a commander?
To make things worse, the cart you use to ferry supplies is cursed with hyperrealistic physics. Even slight bumps will jostle the items loose, and if you run too fast—even with a half-full load—your cargo might get yeeted across the map. This forces you to walk, despite having a sprint button, just to avoid making a mess.
Worse still, this section eats up a comparable amount of time to the actual survivor inspection—especially early on. If there are no improvements later (like automating deliveries), I dread the endgame turning into a fetch-quest simulator between the warehouse and the camp.
The Bugs Are Worse Than the Zombies
One of the tools provided at your inspection booth is a pistol, meant to protect you from survivors who turn aggressive. But compared to the game’s technical issues, those half-zombies are the least of your worries.
Right now, the game feels like a demo—very much so. Random frame drops, character models disappearing into the void, survivors loitering around unfinished buildings like they're fulfilling an NPC prophecy—it's all there.
Sometimes, the game doesn’t even close properly, forcing me to use Task Manager just to boot up something else.
And yet, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the demo and can’t wait for the full release. I'm especially curious about the rest of the gadgets—there are eight item slots, but only five were available. The developers also mentioned upcoming features like randomized symptoms and a deeper story—which, fair enough, is expected in a full version.
Most of all, I’m excited to see what other zombie shenanigans the game has in store. Maybe next time, the undead will sneak past the guards and join the inspection line just to point at me and laugh.
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Quarantine Zone: The Last Check Product Information
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| Title | QUARANTINE ZONE: THE LAST CHECK |
|---|---|
| Release Date | September 2025 |
| Developer | Brigada Games |
| Publisher | Brigada Games |
| Supported Platforms | PC |
| Genre | Puzzle, Action, Base Management |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | TBR |
| Official Website | Quarantine Zone: The Last Check Official Website |
