A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead review – the slowest game ever made
Taking inspiration from Alien Isolation, the first console game set in the Quiet Place universe is an extremely authentic experience.
There are many red flags to look out for when pondering a new video game but being based on a film or TV licence is not one of them, at least not anymore. The days of cheaply made tie-ins being churned out for any movie with even a slight amount of action are long gone and instead most licensed games today are much more thoughtfully crafted. They’re also rarely direct adaptations, instead merely being based in the same fictional universe.
Such is the case with The Road Ahead, which is supposedly cannon with the existing three Quiet Place films but features a brand new set of characters. Given the gimmick of the movies is avoiding monsters that are attracted by sound, a game certainly has plenty of potential. Unfortunately though, The Road Ahead raises a much more reliable red flag, seeing as the publisher did not send out review copies to anyone before its launch.
On top of that, and despite being based on a well-known property, the game is strangely half the price of most other major titles. It’s unsurprising to find that this is not an act of charity towards the films’ fans. It’s also surprising that, despite all the ill omens, the game is actually very interesting.
Unlike some movie tie-ins you definitely don’t need to have seen the films to understand The Road Ahead. The gist is that the Earth has been invaded by blind, heavily armoured aliens that hunt by sound and… that’s it really. Although that translates to a very straightforward gameplay set-up the obvious problem is that trying to be quiet and not moving is not necessarily the most exciting of imperatives, especially as the aliens are almost impossible to kill.
And yet, in concept, it’s not very different from Alien Isolation and even has a similar first person viewpoint. You play as an asthmatic young woman named Alex, whose breathing problems create an additional obstacle when trying to avoid monsters with super-hearing. The plot is just as straightforward as the concept, as Alex journeys with her father, her boyfriend, and a number of other mournful looking survivors, as they travel towards a supposedly safe haven.
On paper this does sound exactly like Alien Isolation, which is no bad thing at all, but in practice it’s very different. The xenomorph will spot you both visually and if you make too much noise, but its sense of hearing is nowhere as good as the Death Angels from A Quiet Place. This means that in The Road Ahead you not only have to be cautious about stepping on anything, or knocking objects over, but you also have to do everything incredibly slowly.
From opening a door to just walking forwards, if you move at anything like a normal speed when an Angel is around then you’ve had it. You can’t blame the game, or the developer (the same studio behind the underappreciated Remothered), for sticking to the rules of the films but that can’t help but make for an incredibly slow-paced game. Nevertheless, the dedication to its premise ensures it’s far more tense and interesting than it’s probably sounding right now.
Alex’s journey is littered with all the many obstacles presented in the films, as you try to avoid treading on dried leaves and unnoticed paints cans, while dealing with squeaky doors and rusty pipe valves.
Early on in the game, Alex constructs herself a phonometer, which shows how much noise she’s making and essentially gives her two or three chances before an Angel is altered to her presence. Although later in the game they start using a special ability that allows them to sense any noise you make, regardless of what else is going on.
Adding to your troubles is the fact that Alex also has a torch, so she doesn’t bump into things at night, but in what we can only assume is a homage to Doom 3, she can only hold one at a time. As with a lot of other things in the game this feels very contrived but it does add to the tension… and the difficulty.
As is typical of most stealth games, which this essentially is, you can also throw bricks and bottles to misdirect the monsters, sometimes using them to clear a path for you, by triggering traps or knocking down walls. As in the movies, you can scatter sand in front of you, to ensure you don’t make any noise at all; while there’s a difficult QTE sequence you have to perform If Alex has an asthma attack – as a result of becoming too stressed or if she exerts herself too much physically.
You can even turn on an option where if the microphone on the DualSense controller picks up ambient noise in the real world, the monster is altered. But you’d have to be a real masochist to leave that going.
The Road Ahead is roughly eight hours long but even if you click with its glacially slow pacing it does start to run out of ideas before the end, as the level of contrivance continues to tick upwards. Its wilderness areas, for example, look like they must’ve been popular fly-tipping spots before the invasion, given the amount of man-made detritus laying around everywhere.
The way the story plays out is also highly predictable, especially if you’ve seen any of the films, and is an absolute slog of misery for poor Alex. It’s not quite that bad for you as a player but you’d have to really like the Quiet Place films to drag yourself through the whole thing. Still, we can’t help but admire the game for sticking to its guns and trying to simulate the movies as accurately as possible.
We’re not sure we ever had any real fun playing it, but this is a tense and occasionally scary experience that, despite some frustrating bugs, wrings every ounce of potential out of the source material. So, if you enjoy stealth games, but wish they were even more slow-paced and exacting, then A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is definitely the game for you.
A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead review summary
In Short: It’s altogether too authentic to the rules of the film but despite its slow-motion gameplay and contrived scenarios it’s hard to imagine a better Quiet Place video game than this.
Pros: A thoughtful adaptation of the movies that cuts no corners in terms of simulating their dangers. Unusual stealth gameplay and some clever gimmicks to try and maintain a sense of variety.
Cons: By necessity, the gameplay is extremely slow-placed and repetitive. Obstacles and story elements both become increasingly contrived before the end. Too many bugs.
Score: 6/10
Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: £24.99
Publisher: Saber Interactive
Developer: Stormind Games
Release Date: 17th October 2024
Age Rating: 16
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