Feel like beingchased by invincible sound-hunting blind aliens? If yes, you’re both in luck, and in desperate need of therapy.
Stormind Games decided tosatisfy that cravingby finally releasing A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead, much to the joy of surreal horror fans everywhere.
The company had previously releasedBatora: Lost Haven, a quaint isometricRPG that mostly flew under the radar,but in terms of scale and beauty, it is nothing nearA Quiet Place: The Road Ahead.
A Quiet Place: The Road Aheadis based on one of the mostbeautifully executed horrorfilms released in the last decade. The film shows John Krasinski’s range as both actor and director, taking on a serious role far from his “funny guy Jim from The Office” fame.
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The setting is simple enough:a meteor brings with it a plague of blind extraterrestrial creaturesthat possess excellent hearing, a virtually impenetrable hide, and very sharp claws.
These evil buggers look straight out ofStarship TroopersorHelldivers 2, but this time around, there is noplanetary nationalismor big gun to save you.
You take on the role of Alex, an ordinary girl with ordinary hobbies like songwriting, and bad stress-induced asthma that came back after a traumatic family loss before the alien invasion.
A Quiet Place: The Road Aheaddelivers some of the best horror gameplay, rivaling big shots likeAlien Isolationand theResident Evil 2remake, but its story and lack of polish hold it back. This review is based on a complete playthrough of the PlayStation 5 edition of the game.
A Story That Falls Silent
On the big screen,A Quiet Placeis all about the characters, with the setting taking a backseat to the emotional distress of being hunted by blind evil aliens. Unfortunately,this is lost onThe Road Ahead, though not for lack of trying.
Alex is a simple character, surrounded by other simple people. The problem with the execution of this is thatthe stories that make her and those around her living beings are plainly announced, rather than lived.
The multiple timelines inA Quiet Place: The Road Aheadshow many mundane interactions but fail to address events that shape relationships in the future.
Some of these things are done on purpose, announcing in the future that a conflict exists because of a certain incident, left mysterious to be revealed during a later flashback, butthe payoff never compensates the feeling of a poorly written radio play.
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There are also problems with pacing that feel distracting, especially when the creatures are not hunting you actively. The conversations and actions incutscenes quickly zip from one to another, robbing you of time to feel their weight.
The mediocre story execution is a missed opportunity by Stormind Games, but not a game-breaking one. The saving grace inA Quiet Place: The Road Aheadis that,once you get past the fluff, the gameplay makes you forget all about it.
Elite Horror Gameplay
In contrast with the ham-fisted storytelling,A Quiet Place: The Road Aheadnails the mundane horror that makes this universe compelling.
Thecreatureshunt you exclusively by sound, soyou must do everything carefullyto avoid becoming alien dinner.
Playing this game makes you realize just how noisy the human condition is, andit brings you to loathe the most mundane things, such as opening a door.
Alex and the other survivors lead a paranoid existence, and Storming nailed that.
AlthoughA Quiet Placehas a relatively guilt-free “fast” walking setting,most of the playthrough was spent slowlybecause of theingrained fearof attracting a creature.
This game also makes you loathe littering more than you possibly could, with the sea of Heinz baked bean cans on the floor signaling a cheap, ugly death.
A Quiet Placeavoids frustration of missing small details by having a “Hints” button, which flashes the current objective on top of the screen and gives a 3D marker with its rough location.
Aid only comes if you call, getting around the infamous companion babble that makes Atreus periodically insufferable in the newGod of Warseries.
Good Ideas, Awkward Execution
By default, the game uses the classic yellow paint to tell you where to go or what to do. The debate around its usage is blown out of proportion, with much performative outrage over a minor issue.
That being said,A Quiet Place: The Road Aheaddevelopers need their paintbrushes confiscated. Every ledge, crawl space, and even loose bricks (yes, really) has a nice layer of Sherwin-Williams Lemon Twist SW 6909.
Thankfully,the game has an option to turn the feature off, which can make some sections confusing, but is preferable to the default yellow menace.
Much like the lukewarm story,A Quiet Place: The Road Aheadmisses the mark with its creative asthma mechanics.
Alex’s asthma gets worse with stress, dust, and physical strain. Reaching a critical level meansa tough choice: either hitting the inhaler and making some noise, or toughing it out, at the risk of having a deadly noisy asthma attack.
The concept is brilliant, butthe execution almost feels gimmicky. Light strains like carrying a plank or crawling for more than a few seconds push Alex to the brink of an attack, sometimes making this mechanic more of a chore than an innovation.
Preventing an attack also has a weird implementation: pills slightly decrease strain and stress levels, while the inhaler adds temporary immunity. It would have been more grounded to have the pills offer baseline resistance while the inhaler deals with crises.
Other minor gripes with this system are that you cannot drink the pills on demand, as they are instantly gobbled down when you add them to your inventory, and the inhalers are all single-use.
Slow, Painful Death and Respawn
Dying inA Quiet Place: The Road Aheadis something you get used to pretty quickly. While the death animations are cool, the game tends to drop you off one to five minutes from where you were.
The problem in this game is that, unlike new horror classics like the Resident Evil 2 remake,you cannot rush to the last point you were in, on account of themurderous beastsready to cut you to pieces if you run.
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As a walking simulator, The Quiet Place: The Road Ahead baffles with only two walking settings. There is no direct way to toggle them though, with the settings defined by analog stick deflection.
Sound & Vision
The soundscape ofA Quiet Place: The Road Aheadis impeccable. After the first few minutes in the game,you learn to identify the surface you are on by the sound of your footsteps, and the Kitbash phonometer quickly becomes redundant.
Every little noise comes with a healthy dose of fear and apprehension, making you second-guess your next move.
On the PlayStation 5,you hear the creatures trying to echolocate you through the controller, making it quite an intimate experience.
For those who game in silent environments, Stormind addeda fantastic option which uses your microphone to detect noises.
The calibration process helps set a baseline, so your room does not need to be noise-free, but those who play around kids or dogs better leave that option off.
While the sound is spotless,the graphics are a mixed bag.
A Quiet Place: The Road Aheaduses the Unreal 5 Engine, so it had all the most modern tools available during development.
The environmental storytelling is great, the world looks lived in until the untimely death of its inhabitants, and the scenery is honestly breathtaking.
It makes for a perfectly photorealistic setting—until the people show up. The character models in A Quite Place all havethat “late PlayStation 3 game” aura, with stiff animations and texturing that donot flatterthe 3D models.
On a standard PlayStation 5, some segments of the game suffer fromstutters and poor frames, which is hard to understand, considering this is a linear experience running on a modern engine.
Closing Comments:
A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is a great horror game in a vacuum, but it is held back by trying to double as a quasi-adaptation. The brilliant mechanics and environment can distract you from its shortcomings most of the time, but it periodically reminds you that this could have been so much more. The foundations are well laid out though, and if Stormind can improve the storytelling and optimization, any sequel to this would earn an easy 9/10 rating.
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