A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead was published on October 17 by Saber Interactive – but it was developed over several years by Stormind Games, an Italian studio. As an expansion to an established cinematic universe, The Road Ahead promised a nail-biting experience fraught with tension that was irrevocably linked to the core recipe of A Quiet Place.
What the team ultimately delivered is a relatively watered-down and linear walkthrough of an attractive world that’s far too easy to survive in for something post-apocalyptic and ideally quite harrowing.
Read on to check out my full A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead review.
Light on the Survival
A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead starts nicely and progresses at a balanced pace. It alternates between the present-day apocalypse and flashback sequences that help to set the scene and build the world. It’s possible to enjoy The Road Ahead without ever having seen one of the movies, but if you’re here, you’ve probably seen one of the movies.
The story isn’t overwhelmingly immersive and it’s mostly predictable, but it’s good enough to keep things steaming along. It becomes fraught very early on, and some fundamental twists will make the player feel much more invested in what’s happening to Alex Taylor, the title’s protagonist.
As a ‘survival horror’ game, The Road Ahead is light on survival and moderate on horror.
There are plenty of jumpscares to claw your way past, and the need to stay silent all the time can feel quite intense. It’s a helpful way of slowing down the game, though – which only comes in at around six hours if you’re able to progress without being killed too much by the fearsome creatures.
The survival elements are thin to none, though. Despite being in an apocalyptic setting, there’s nothing to ‘loot’ despite a few basic resources, and there are almost no offensive abilities at all in the game. It also holds your hand – more so if you play on ‘easy’. On the lowest difficulty setting, the game becomes an utter cakewalk, which is kind of the point.
It became irritating and immersion-breaking to see how much the game guides you. If you press a button, your objectives are revealed, if you hold another, the creatures hunting you are illuminated, if you can interact with something, it’s highlighted and painted yellow, if something can be knocked over to make a noise, it’s painted red.
I’ll admit that in the interest of time, I didn’t play the game on a harder difficulty, so perhaps you can give it a try and let me know how it goes.
Hardly Innovative
A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead allows players to make use of a microphone monitoring mechanic. If they make a noise in real life, they’ll be detected by the creatures in the game.
Of course, that meant I was free to re-enact the scene from the first A Quiet Place movie where John Krasinski’s character sacrifices himself. Spoiler Alert: I died hard.
It also means that a single cough or a belch is enough to bring a world of pain down upon you. I quickly became tired of the feature, even if the thresholds can be tweaked so it’s not so sensitive. I remember a similar feature being present in 2013’s Dead Rising 3, which allowed you to shout into a microphone to gain the attention of zombies.
I have a two-year-old son, there’s no way on Earth I’m going to get far with my microphone being monitored.
Aside from a few puzzles and tough-to-navigate areas, The Road Ahead isn’t too taxing a game. It looks great on the surface and the sound cues (however repetitive) and ambient, environmental soundtrack are good enough, plus the voice acting is stellar, but I feel like it could have been much better done as a whole.
I honestly feel like it would be superb as a VR title, and it would have delivered much better on the horror aspect of the game.
Verdict: Wait
If you’re a fan of A Quiet Place, you’ll like the world-building and the universe you’re exploring – even if your adventure doesn’t go too far off a defined trail. The creatures are well-designed and authentic, and the intensity is certainly there until you get settled, but the story isn’t meaty enough to truly immerse a player.
Once you’ve locked down the game’s core mechanics, it becomes all too easy to survive. Most of the time, you’ll be crab-walking around a closed area trying to avoid a creature that will kill you with a single hit if you rustle a bush or step on an empty can.
Ultimately, I don’t think A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is worth the $29.99 price tag, and it might be a better idea to wait for a sale, particularly if you’re not interested in the franchise.
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