I struggled to write about A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead. I knew after the first hour or so of playing that I wasn’t having fun and I didn’t think it was a good game. While slogging through the first half of the game, I was hoping something would click. Instead, I continued to get frustrated by its mundane gameplay and uninteresting story.
A story that fails to grab your attention.
I had a lot of problems with The Road Ahead, but two stood out the most. The first is that I wasn’t interested in the story. The other is that I found the gameplay to be repetitive and inconsistent.
Although an original story in the same universe, the game’s plot uses some of the same elements from the film. Family is a major aspect here. The plot focuses on a young woman, Alex. Like in the movie, Alex is pregnant. While in the film the main character is deep into her pregnancy, Alex only recently finds out about hers. And, like the film, her pregnancy plays a key plot point in the story.
I didn’t find Alex to be that interesting of a character. Worst of all, I found that the people she interacted with were no better. They show early on that her boyfriend’s mother has some resentment towards Alex. But, there is nothing that we see in those early scenes that gives us that impression. You have to progress through the game to get a flashback sequence that shows us why. When it happened, I was thinking “Wait, so that’s why she ‘hates’ Alex?!”. I don’t want to spoil what’s the cause but from a third-person perspective, it makes no sense.
What worked well for the film was that we had a family working together. It’s about a mother trying to protect her children from grave danger. Here, Alex is on her own. Yes, she’s trying to protect her unborn child, but she’s just found out about her pregnancy. It’s not like she could give berth any moment.
Gameplay that doesn’t excite
The key gameplay loop revolves around sound. Since these monsters rely on sound to track their human prey, noise plays a major factor in how you move around. Yet its implementation is inconsistent.
Level designs were always the same. Rather than give us an open world where we have to figure out a way to avoid detection, they limit everything. Every stage is linear. There is always only one real way to get to your next destination. For example, there is a section in a trainyard. Instead of allowing us to use the many train cars to our advantage, we’re forced to follow a predetermined path to get to the exit.
The game establishes that you can’t kill the monsters. You have to focus on avoiding them. You can trick them, but there are a lot of scripted monster moments. For example, there were two times when I needed to gain access to a room but the door was locked. The only way in was to go through a window. Both times I had to break the window with an object. Then, after I got into the rooms, a monster would smash through the walls, eliminating the door.
Making any sort of noise almost always results in death. Yes, the game gives you a bit of wiggle room, but it’s a small window. If you alert the monster of your presence, it always finds you. What’s frustrating is that there are spots where you should be able to hide to avoid detection. You’d like to hide behind a stack of crates or in a locker, but the game makes these inaccessible.
A tough game to recommend
I wanted to like A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead. I gave it more than a fair chance to win me over. But, the further I got into the game the less and less I enjoyed it. If the gameplay was solid, then I could overlook the forgettable story. Reversely, if the story was interesting, then I could overlook the repetitive gameplay. This does neither well and I don’t have the time to waste to proceed any further. This is hard to recommend to anyone, even the most hardcore fans of the film franchise.
