Friends, it’s 2024, and we’re finally back getting games about a movie! Well, kind of. I miss the good old days of games based on movies that were simply just that. A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead IS a movie game, technically, but based within the same universe as the movies. I need to stop before I start rambling. I have a lot to say about this one, so let’s get right into it.
What is A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead?
A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is a horror adventure, set in the titular A Quiet Place universe. It is considered to be a spin-off of the movie franchise. You play as Alex, who honestly, is at a disadvantage for this kind of hellscape. Alex has asthma, which needs to be managed with an inhaler and medication. Not only this, Alex is pregnant. And very quickly after learning of her pregnancy, she loses her boyfriend to the aliens. A scene very reminiscent of the first movie. Alex must now survive alone, get back to their base within a hospital, and then flee from said base. It’s an interesting concept, even if it does reuse the premise of the first two movies. The end goal, however, is not just to survive, but to find true safety.
A drawn-out place
A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is set between days 105 and 120 of the alien invasion. This sets it over a year before the first movie. The damage to the world has begun to settle, but there are still places to loot. The game starts in one of those places – what seems to be a wellness retreat, for want of a better description. It’s like a hotel, but contained an on-site nurse and doctor. Your first task is to loot the abandoned building for medication.
This is where Alex learns of her pregnancy. The basement of this building has a “safe room”. A room where noise can be made with no fear. The news is shared, Alex and her boyfriend celebrate, and all seems well in this bleak world. But this is a horror game, so joyous moments are often short-lived. This one ends the very next morning, when Martin, Alex’s boyfriend, sacrifices himself to save her. Alex gets her foot/leg caught, and Martin screams to draw attention away from her trying to free herself.
And so begins the real game, where humans are as dangerous as the aliens who have invaded. After an unsuccessful attempt to hide her pregnancy, Alex must leave the hospital that her father and other survivors had turned into a safe haven. However, it’s not as simple as just walking out the door. An argument between her father and another survivor (Laura, Martin’s mother) draws the aliens in, leading to a full evacuation. And so the show must go on, because friends, this is all the start of the game.
A not so Quiet place
A lot of interesting choices were made regarding A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead. The most evident being Alex having asthma. This is something that could have actually been really cool, if implemented better. Everything in this universe is built on not making a sound so the aliens can’t get you. However, if Alex starts having an asthma attack, you can use her inhaler while stood RIGHT BESIDE an alien with zero consequences. There is also a system in place for calming down before an attack happens, however I found it to be useless. Maybe there’s a bug, but it just never worked for me. That led to me needing to rely on the inhaler and meds more than normal.
And that’s another thing! It’s established early on that Alex should avoid taking meds as much as possible while pregnant, but the game will have you popping them like Tic Tacs. I can understand minor oversights, say it were a one time incident, but it is constant. There are a lot of contradictory points in the game. And again, taking the meds doesn’t alert the aliens. I know it’s standard for games to have healable items, but seriously? Why build a world where you can’t make noise without dying, but require noisy items to heal? It’s genuinely baffling to me.
For me, personally, the only thing likeable about the game is the graphics. Especially outdoor areas. The landscaping is gorgeous to look at, and I would have liked to explore that more. But all you really do is go from overly long stealth section to overly long stealth section, right until the game ends.
Is this the end?
To avoid spoilers, I won’t go into detail on the ending of A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead. What I will say is that it feels like a non-ending. What I mean by this is that I do not feel it is a satisfactory ending. There are still questions to be answered. Not enough for it to feel like sequel-baiting, or even DLC-baiting. But an extra maybe 5, 10 minutes would have solved that right up. Though I feel like if the game was any longer, my review score would be lower.
A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is NOT a long game, it can be finished in a handful of hours. Sadly, that handful of hours feels like an eternity. The pacing is just way off, to the point where none of the story bits that are meant to be emotional actually hit. I didn’t feel a single thing for any of the characters. All I felt was bored.
If you like games that are nothing but stealth, this one may be for you. However, truth be told, that’s the only way I can see this game being enjoyed. The story beats don’t hit, and the scares and tension are lacking. This game feels like it was released far too soon. The ideas are there, but none of them are fleshed out enough to make this a worthwhile experience.
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