Video games based on movies have become a lost art. You don’t really see it happen all that often anymore. So it’s nice to see Saber Interactive take a swing at this with A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead. As the name suggests, the game is set in the same universe as the Quiet Place movies. However, even though they share the same name and universe, the game doesn’t require players to have seen any of the three movies that are currently out. Instead, The Road Ahead introduces a new cast of characters for players to meet as they try to survive an alien invasion.
A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead
Developer: Saber Interactive
Price: $29.99
Platform: Xbox Series X|S (reviewed), PlayStation 5, PC
MonsterVine was supplied with an Xbox Series X code for review
As for the game itself, it plays a lot like a walking simulator. It can be compared to What Remains of Edith Finch in the sense that you get from one point to another while the character gives you more story beats on what’s happening. But of course, while walking around, you’ll need to be as quiet as possible to ensure you don’t lure the Death Angel to you. There are a lot of little mechanics that make The Road Ahead unique. The first is the option to enable the game to use your mic.
This was fun because it added an extra layer of immersion. It forces the players to be as silent as possible in real life. But it can also cause some funny moments, such as your phone going off in the real world. That is why a Death Angel catches you, which forces you to start from the nearest checkpoint all over again.
That’s not the only unique gimmick The Road Ahead does to spice things up. There are a lot of little things you’ll need to pay attention to while playing. These include ensuring that you’re tip-toeing over the glass and avoiding awkwardly placed cans in the middle of the woods, simple bear traps, or even disarming a bunch of cans that’ll fall the second you walk over a cord.
The Road Ahead also does a great job of making simple, mundane things tense. Because every little thing you do makes noise, and it’s up to you to make these as silent as possible. So, something as simple as opening a door or drawer can determine whether you become alien food.
In addition, the character you play has asthma, which plays a vital role in the game. A lot of things can cause your character’s asthma to act up, such as being too close to a Death Angel, carrying heavy objects, and being in areas filled with dust. This creates a fun game of cat and mouse because it forces you to be smart with your movements, and if the Death Angel is nearby, it’ll hear you using your inhaler. Even though it was a fun mechanic, there were a lot of ways to work around this feature and more times than not. The inhaler was something I rarely used.
Even though there are many things working against the player, it isn’t all bad. Early in the game, you get your hands on a device that essentially tells you how much noise you’re making, and it’s a great way to know when you need to shut up. As the game progresses, you get items that lure the Death Angel away from you.
The Road Ahead has a lot of neat and fun mechanics, but the game can feel a bit dull a lot of the time. For a large chunk of the game, the Death Angel isn’t in it. Most of the time, you’re by yourself, and if you end up making too much noise, it’ll trigger a cutscene where the Death Angel comes out of nowhere to murder you. This took me out of the game a lot because it would have been nice to see the Death Angel hunting me down, but instead, the majority of the game was me walking in dark rooms.
When the Death Angel was next to me, it was short-lived and usually contained to a specific part of a level. It’s a shame because these are easily the best parts of the game. Nothing gets the heart racing more than a killer alien who’s face-to-face with you. This is especially scary because this will speed up your character’s breathing, which will force you to get out of there as quickly as possible. Another part that was a bit of a letdown was that the AI wasn’t all that smart, and getting out of a tricky situation wasn’t all that hard. This issue could have been overlooked if the Death Angel had been in the game more often, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
Another part of the game that didn’t click with me too much was the story. It’s a shame because it starts off strong by telling how you ended up in your situation and how you and your friends are surviving in this new world. But a lot of the time, it felt very bland, and the human aspects of the story were very weak. It does have some compelling story beats, but it felt like watching a Kaiju movie in the sense that you wanted to see more of the monster and less of the humans.
This is unfortunate because the Quiet Place films are generally known for telling compelling human stories. However, one thing that separates the two is that the films do a great job of having the characters express themselves and talk via body language. The Road Ahead, on the other hand, has the characters whispering to one another, and because of that, a part of the franchise’s charm is lost.
The Final Word
A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is fun if you’re looking for an entertaining horror game. It has a lot of fun mechanics that add a lot of nuances to each level while throwing in fun death mazes for you to navigate. But being said, the Death Angels AI isn’t the best, and many of the story beats aren’t as heavy-hitting as their movie counterparts.
– MonsterVine Rating: 3 out of 5 – Average
