Quarantine Zone vs Contraband Police: Which inspection game is best?

Games like Contraband Police quickly gain popularity for their addictive gameplay loops and endless replayability. With Quarantine Zone: The Last Check joining this simulator genre niche back in January, there’s a new checkpoint with a vacancy for a border guard inspector.

We’ve got the key comparisons between the Quarantine Zone border zombie checkpoint and the 1980s communist backdrop of Contraband Police to help you decide which border enforcement game is better suited to your taste. 

Quarantine Zone vs Contraband Police: Story

The Quarantine Zone: The Last Check story revolves around you being transported to a military checkpoint that you then operate in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, to get those that aren’t infected to safety. The campaign consists of 26 days of inspections, with a few short side quests here and there, and that’s it. 

If you make it through each day by meeting quotas, you get the good ending; if you fail too many times, you get a bad ending. Both endings conclude the game abruptly and lack meaningful outcomes.

Contraband Police is set in 1981, and you will find yourself working at the heart of a Soviet regime where tensions are high. In the Quarantine Zone game, you don’t leave your post, but some of the story missions in Contraband Police actually take you away from your checkpoint, which also enables opportunities for exploration and interaction with characters. Contraband Police also has two endings with different consequences: a Government ending, where you remain loyal to the state, and a Rebel ending that sees you join the uprising. 

The upcoming Contraband Police Crimson Fall DLC will expand on the story of the base game. Crimson Fall is set in 1983, and the Republic of Kagastam has fallen, and you’re working at a border outpost in the middle of an ongoing conflict.

Quarantine Zone’s narrative mode is underdeveloped, relying solely on a zombie apocalypse setting to build a tense, gritty atmosphere. If you want a story that goes beyond your role as a border guard and delves into the world around you, the Contraband Police game delivers just that.

Quarantine Zone vs Contraband Police: Gameplay

When comparing the Quarantine Zone gameplay with that of Contraband Police, they appear similar on the surface. Characters approach you in the hopes of passing through your checkpoint, you inspect them, search for any inadmissible items, and make a decision on whether or not they’re eligible to pass through. 

Contraband Police requires you to check their papers, inspect their vehicles for contraband and cargo inconsistencies, and more. There’s already a lot to keep tabs on, but Quarantine Zone adds more factors to inspections and focuses on resource management. 

In the Quarantine Zone game, you have nine tools to complete your inspections. This includes a hammer to review reflexes, a listening device to check the lungs, and even a co-worker who will extract restricted items you may find “stored” inside a person on your X-Ray device, ouch! 

There is a whole host of symptoms on the Quarantine Zone symptoms list that characters can present with that are all first discovered by you dissecting survivors in the lab. Some symptoms don’t indicate infection, some are signs of potential infection, and others are guaranteed to be a zombie infection. Quarantine Zone isn’t as simple as letting someone through or sending them away, as it is in Contraband Police. If survivors are presenting signs of infection, they can be sent to quarantine, where you will keep an eye on them for extra in-game days. 

However, if they are infected, they will turn into a zombie and kill everyone else who is in quarantine, raising the stakes of your decision-making compared to Contraband Police, which doesn’t take the life-or-death approach. The same can happen if you make a mistake sending an infected person to the survivors’ block, and the damage from that can impact your quota. 

Speaking of your quota, failing to meet it can lead you to failing an entire day in games like Contraband Police, Quarantine Zone included, and this is where resource management really comes in. 

You must manage the number of survivors you’re accepting, ensuring there are enough, while also upgrading to increase capacity and continuing to allocate essential resources to the survivors’ block, such as power, medical supplies, and more. 

Just like Contraband Police, money is earned or deducted based on whether each inspection you conduct is successful. However, money in Contraband Police is primarily used for upgrades to your checkpoint, including your living area, the size of the jail cell, buying ammunition, and maintenance bills.

Despite the absence of resource management in the Contraband Police game, it features action elements in random shootouts and vehicle chases. Both games may share similar core mechanics, but enough gameplay features separate the two to provide unique experiences. 

Quarantine Zone vs Contraband Police: Characters

First displayed in the Quarantine Zone demo, characters arriving at your checkpoint come in all shapes and sizes. Some will show fear, some will be impatient, while others will express anger through their facial expressions and insults (although anger is a symptom of potential infection). 

The aesthetics of Quarantine Zone characters are more important than those of the Contraband Police because some zombie symptoms are visible, such as discoloured skin, bruising, and bite marks. Quarantine Zone also has a multitude of opportunities to diversify its roster of survivors, as shown by a crossover with Dead by Daylight, which introduced iconic characters Dwight Fairfield, Meg Thomas, Claudette Morel, and Jake Park to the game through a free Quarantine Zone update.

As for Contraband Police, all characters are consistent with the theme of a 1980s Soviet regime, sporting clothing that best represents the setting with green, grey, brown, and blue color palettes. There are no female characters in Contraband Police, but that will be rectified in the aforementioned Contraband Police Crimson Fall DLC. 

The characters in Contraband Police do have more personality than those in Quarantine Zone: The Last Check. First of all, they speak the fictional language of Acaristanee, so the design of facial expressions and body language is key to bringing the characters to life. Some characters will even bribe you with cash if you discover contraband, while others with something to hide will put pedal to the metal and breach the barrier in their vehicle to take you on a wild goose chase.

Quarantine Zone vs Contraband Police: Which game is best?

The game that comes out on top in Quarantine Zone vs Contraband Police depends on whether you want an authentic border-enforcement experience or elements of resource management sprinkled in. There’s far more to keep track of in Quarantine Zone inspections because of the array of symptoms you can come across, of which there are more consequences if you get an inspection wrong compared to Contraband Police.

However, more flashy tools and areas to manage don’t always mean better. Contraband Police has really nailed the structure of border inspection, focusing on a more traditional experience of reviewing documents and conducting vehicle inspections. If you’re interested in a story, Contraband Police is recommended over Quarantine Zone because it delivers more action and requires players to make their own choices at the end.