Looking to recreate the tense atmosphere and dread of the films, A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead has you silently survive. Does it do it well?
Horror has always been about the atmosphere created by eerie silences and the noises that break those up. Be it from the character, trying to be as quiet as they can to avoid alerting the big bad to where they are, or in some cases, the noises that the big bad makes as you know it’s coming towards you. How else would you be able to identify the scariest horror monster ever without the distinctive sound of it on the tarmac? Though it must be said, A Quiet Place, led by the incomparable Emily Blunt and John Krasinski, also knew how to create that atmosphere. A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead looks to recreate that in game form.
Let me start by saying I didn’t use one of A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead’s touted features, microphone detection. Well, I should say that I simply flicked the mic on my headset to off mode because as much as it may add to the game, having to hold your breath or breathe lightly, my cats didn’t get that memo. Also, I’ve seen A Quiet Place: Day One; the cat survived – spoiler alert – so the creatures shouldn’t be killing me because my cats decided they wanted to get involved.
If that breaks this review for you, then off you pop because the reality is that the feature isn’t something new or anything that adds to the game. If anything, it detracts from it because I don’t live in that world. I want to immerse myself, but barricading myself in a sound and cat-proof room isn’t reasonable or feasible. For those of you who are left and want to hear about the game, its mechanics, story and everything else, let’s carry on.
We’ll carry on with sound. Naturally, the whole world of A Quiet Place revolves around sound, and as Alex, you’re going to want to make as little sound as possible, with five different forms of movement – walking and crouching, both fast and slow, and sprinting. For most of the game, you will do the fast crouch because that’s the optimal approach; it’s quicker and quieter than the slow walk. You only need to go into a slow crouch over particularly noisy ground, such as broken glass or puddles.
This is the game’s key selling point, though the mileage you get from it will vary. It does try to play around with it a little. At different points, you will find bags of sand, which you can pour out to create paths of silence. You can also find bricks and bottles to throw and distract the aliens, and towards the end of the game, you can give the alien a headache by triggering a feedback loop on the TV. Another thing that links to noise is using a tool to detect the sound you’re making compared to the ambient sound.
I said « towards the end of the game » for the TV thing. This is my first criticism: A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is too short for the mechanics it introduces. I get the feeling that this was meant to be a longer game than it was, with more puzzles about getting around the monster, but something happened.
