A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead Review (Xbox Series X|S)

Stormind’s new game A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is a first-person survival horror, inspired by the A Quiet Place films. Not all films work well as games, but Stormind has successfully transferred the world of the films and combined it with classic survival horror elements to create a fun gaming experience that leaves you appreciating sounds in your day-to-day life… especially with the mic setting turned on.

Story

A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead picks up 105 days after the Death Angel invasion. The story follows college student, turned post-apocalyptic survivor, Alex Taylor, as she struggles with her asthma in a world where a cough can get her killed; while navigating her relationship with her boyfriend, Martin, and their relatives. Tragedy strikes, tensions run high, and in the chaos, Alex finds herself alone, with little hope for survival. 

The game flashes back to day one occasionally. This is a great way to deliver post-apocalyptic stories, as you get a better understanding of the character’s past and how the relationships were before all hell broke loose. In one flashback, a gate is opened and its hinges squeak loudly; such a mundane thing to consider, the loss of something so simple. Nothing is simple now.

Gameplay

Players will find themselves in a repeated gameplay loop that consists of sneaking through areas, looking for resources/collectibles and managing Alex’s asthma. Stress and overexertion can trigger Alex’s asthma. Players must seek out pills and inhalers to prevent an asthma attack, thus preventing a Death Angel attack.

The game is broken up into acts, and each act is replayable, with a checklist of missing items, that is really handy as you can go back and find collectables missed the first time through. The standout collectable is a toy rocket, the same one from A Quiet Place (2018), further connecting the original film to the game.

Each act is a new area, and each area introduces new dangers to look out for, and new abilities to increase odds of survival. My personal favorites were the ability to throw items to distract the creatures and the sandbags, as you can walk as fast as you want on the sand without making a sound.

The game took me roughly nine hours on normal and I found the experience to be quite easy as I hardly made any noise. All the required items were conveniently placed, and the creatures followed set paths that were relatively simple to avoid. I found myself surviving most encounters by memorizing patterns and throwing the occasional brick; this left me wishing for more opportunities to get creative and think on my feet. I wasn’t really too bothered about dying, as the regular autosaves prevented me from losing much progress, which divested me of any fear I had of getting caught. 

Summary

A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is a decent addition to the survival horror genre. It mimics the films really well, and adds elements to the story that work perfectly within it, such as Alex having asthma and incorporating that into the gameplay and narrative. As a well versed survival horror player, I found the game to be a bit simple for my taste, however I would recommend this to anyone trying out survival horror for the first time.