A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead Review – A Journey at Quite the Pace

As quietly as a survivor navigating its environment, A Quiet Place has a new video game connection, and even though the publisher hasn’t done much in terms of marketing, it’s surprisingly decent.

By Mark Delaney on October 21, 2024 at 3:40PM PDT

A Quiet Place has swiftly established itself as one of the standout horror franchises in recent years. With three films now released, the series delves into a captivating universe where sightless aliens rely heavily on their acute hearing to pursue humans who must remain utterly silent. Adapting this uniquely slow and quiet narrative into a video game creates an intriguing venture, and it’s clear why A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead has made its launch somewhat under the radar. It presents players with an unusual challenge, one I’m thankful to have faced, despite several flaws.

A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is a first-person stealth-horror experience featuring a new cast of characters who, like those from the films, are on a quest for safety from the alien threat that has seized control of Earth. In the role of Alex—an asthmatic young woman accompanied by her boyfriend, father, and a few other quiet companions—players set off on a journey that will constantly test her ability to navigate while crouched.

The design concept could easily lead to a frustrating gaming experience. In titles that provide the option to enhance my crouched movement speed, I always opt to unlock it as soon as possible—I have a strong preference for stealth games and strive to refine that skill within them. Therefore, it’s significant that The Road Ahead not only requires you to crouch-walk throughout nearly every moment of its 7-to-10-hour narrative, but also compels you to do it at an agonizingly slow pace, often only nudging the left stick gently, as the aliens’ behavior is erratic, reminiscent of Alien: Isolation’s Xenomorph, and they can detect even the slightest sound of a hurried crouched footstep.

This challenge is further complicated by the diverse terrains and obstacles you’ll need to navigate in any given mission. Items like tin cans, wooden planks, leaves, and puddles are scattered along the paths that separate you from what are usually simple environmental puzzles, such as gathering and utilizing fuses to open doors. Every movement in this game carries weight, making it clear that a hurried effort to accomplish even the smallest task will likely lead to your demise.

At an early point in the story, Alex constructs a phonometer that gauges the sounds of the environment against the noise she creates herself. If her noise exceeds the environmental sound level, the alien can potentially hear her, and depending on the difficulty setting, she may only have two or three chances to go undetected by the alien before it strikes, or at the very least, rushes to investigate the source of the sound.

In the most captivating missions of the game, aliens roam alongside you, while in other scenarios, they remain unseen but can result in an immediate game-over screen if you create too much noise. I found the alien to be exceptionally alert, regardless of the difficulty level—having tried all three settings—along with an ultra-challenging “survivor” mode that appears nearly impossible due to the relentless skill of the game’s primary monsters.

Opening doors and drawers is a frequent necessity, both for advancing through the game and for locating essential supplies such as inhalers for Alex’s asthma or batteries to recharge her flashlight. Remarkably, the act of opening any door or drawer takes 8-10 seconds if you wish to avoid alerting the monster. This requirement transforms each action into a tense operation, akin to a teenager sneaking out of their house at night, but with stakes that are considerably higher.

These gameplay moments highlight how The Road Ahead might not resonate with every player. It stands out for demanding an extraordinary level of patience, yet this design choice effectively captures the authentic tension found in its cinematic inspirations, where the monsters are keenly aware of their surroundings. Alex juggles her phonometer and flashlight in her left hand, limiting her to one at a time. This setup forces a continuous evaluation: should you focus on illuminating the shadowy path ahead or gauge the noise you’re generating? The phonometer indicates how aware the alien is of your presence, but without the flashlight, you risk colliding with something that creates a noise loud enough to inform you that you’re in serious trouble.

As the narrative progresses, both Alex and the monsters enhance their capabilities. Alex gains the ability to throw bottles and bricks, or carefully lay down planks—once again, this needs to be done slowly and silently, or else the consequences can be dire. As the game unfolds, new elements such as flares for Alex, and a scanning mechanic that allows the aliens to detect any noise, even those that don’t break through the ambient sounds, add further complexity to the survival mechanics. Alex can also exploit the alien’s behavior by tossing a brick through a window, prompting the creature to sometimes smash through the wall, granting her access to previously inaccessible areas. The game’s excruciatingly slow-paced cat-and-mouse sequences are among its strongest features, despite some lacking in opportunities for creativity.

Overall, The Road Ahead showcases intriguing concepts but doesn’t always develop them thoroughly. For instance, players can discover sandbags that enable the creation of silent pathways, mirroring the actions of characters in the films. However, the areas with sandbags tended to provide an abundance, which eliminated the challenge of crafting optimal routes. Instead, I often built extensive networks of safe passageways to ensure a quick escape if the alien was closing in, unaware of my presence. At times, stacks of throwable bricks appeared in limitless quantities, leading me to wish for more strategic thinking regarding their use.

Checkpointing can be a source of annoyance at times. The game generally saves your progress automatically when you complete significant milestones, like gathering one of the necessary items to move forward. However, problems can arise when a single step in a lengthy process is so intricate that having to restart it feels discouraging. In a couple of occasions, I found myself needing to restart an area due to bugs that seemed to signal a lack of refinement. The first occurrence had me entering an area that was supposed to be locked until I discovered a key. I hadn’t located it yet but figured I must have missed it since I managed to get to the other side. I could see the next point of progression, but the game prevented me from advancing because I had slipped into a limbo state that placed me in the right location at an inopportune time.

A similar incident occurred in the final level of the game when I ascended a rooftop and opted to open a hatch based on the on-screen prompt, only to find that no hatch was present, trapping me within the game’s geometry and forcing a reset from the last checkpoint. It felt like a leftover element from an earlier version of the level. Just as the game occasionally falls short in expanding upon its intriguing concepts, it can also come across as somewhat unrefined.

Alex’s battle with asthma is incorporated into the gameplay in that excessive stress can trigger an attack. This stress can be both physical, such as lifting heavy barrels to clear a pathway, and psychological, as in being close to the monster. Often, the creature would be mere inches away, creating a wonderfully tense atmosphere. This situation could initiate a quick-time event where you, as Alex, might experience an asthma attack, potentially alerting the alien to your presence. You’ll need to manage this situation by quickly seeking inhalers or other aids, or succeed in overcoming the attack with precise button presses. I found these moments manageable, yet I seldom executed them perfectly. This made the tension persistent, as I carefully navigated around the monster.

In addition to her asthma, Alex faces other challenges that I won’t reveal, but I perceive her character as being laden with contrived scenarios designed to evoke player sympathy. The overall journey of the narrative is engaging, yet I was consistently aware of how the writers placed numerous burdens on her instead of focusing on a single aspect of her identity to illustrate why I should feel connected to her. The interactive nature of video games already serves as a bridge for empathy, so certain elements of her backstory and the events unfolding throughout the tale felt like an excessive attempt to ensure players were emotionally engaged.

The remarkably slow pace might divide opinions, yet for me, it was a commendable effort, even if it wasn’t always executed to perfection. I appreciate this unique pacing as a valuable aspect of the game, and it never truly frustrated me. Instead, what bothered me were issues that were somewhat separate from this primary quality, such as the strangely sparse audio settings and the aforementioned bugs.

I always use headphones while gaming, so I was taken aback to discover that this game, which places a heavy emphasis on sound, lacks even basic audio options like switching to a headphone-compatible output. Consequently, the audio often feels flat when experienced through a headset. There is one feature that allows the alien character to pick up sounds from your microphone, which I found to be effective due to the custom calibration options available. I experimented with this at various intervals but ultimately decided to keep it turned off for most of my session, as I have two children and a dog in my home, and I didn’t want Alex to fall prey to the infamous Bluey theme song.

It may seem that I have many grievances regarding A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead, and if counted one by one, my frustrations indeed surpass the elements I relished. However, I also believe its innovative stealth-horror approach is compelling enough for you to experience it firsthand; its standout features surpass their individual merits. A future patch could address some of these refinement issues—though considering how this game was launched with minimal marketing, I question whether the development team is even dedicated to further enhancements.

A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is undoubtedly a flawed yet fascinating effort to translate a premise that may not lend itself easily to a video game format. The idea of stealthily maneuvering around a monster for prolonged periods should have been a significantly worse experience, but it turns out to be a workable concept that could have evolved into a cult classic with a bit more attention to detail.

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