A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead | PS5 Review

I’ll play (and review) just about any genre of game. Any reader of my reviews might notice a horror-themed trend, though. In the absence of available horror games, I’ll gladly review a game based on a horror property. Enter A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead. Based on the universe of the A Quiet Place movies, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to put myself in the shoes of a hero who must avoid the certain death that is making too much noise anywhere near, or in this case nowhere near, one of the creatures from the movies. The game did not disappoint.

An Interactive Piece to the Movie Universe

First and foremost, this game is not based on the movies themselves. Within the movie universe, we play in a different story all together, although some of the plot beats are very similar. Our protagonists also witnessed the meteor-looking event that we saw in A Quiet Place Part II. Our main character is pregnant, just like Emily Blunt’s character in the first movie, although very newly pregnant. Childbirth is not even remotely imminent. 

Our main character (the one that the player controls), Alex, lives with her father in a commune that has taken over a hospital. Her boyfriend, Martin, who is also the baby-daddy, has recently died. His mother, Laura, is the mayor (?) of the commune. However, she is grief stricken and has largely given up. This opens the door for a really bad guy named Kenneth to try to forcibly take over as a dictator-esque character. However, the hospital gets overrun by the creatures causing everybody inside to die or escape in separate directions. Alex and her father escape separately. One of the early chapters involves Alex trying to find her father. Laura, who blames Alex for the current misery and implies that she will either take the baby after it’s born or get rid of it (I was unclear), begins her chase after Alex.

From here, A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is a journey of Alex trying to get from location to location to either find a character (like her father) or find some item or group who can help her. All the while, she must be quiet and she must evade/survive her encounters with Laura.

Oh, one other wrinkle. Alex has asthma. The more nervous she gets, the more she exerts herself, if she carries a heavy item for too long, and many other triggers, will set off an asthma attack. Luckily, there are inhalers everywhere. I am surprised there wasn’t an FDA warning at the beginning of the game that said “using an inhaler as frequently as you will in this game is not recommended.”

Be Quiet!

Gameplay is quite simple: Shut the hell up. Walking fast makes noise, don’t do that. Before the creatures arrived, humans left a LOT of aluminum cans on the ground. Don’t kick those. Believe me, that’s a tall request but it CAN be done (get it?). 

The controls are responsive. Sure, you have the option to walk faster. When it’s raining heavily or you’re near a river, feel free to walk as fast as you can! Any other time, you must keep it to a slow pace to reduce noise. The controls allow you make miniscule adjustments on the thumb stick to adjust how quickly you can walk before you alert the creatures. Thankfully, on the easier difficulties, you have a device that you can look at to show the ambient noise of your environment vs the noise that you are making. Go higher than the meter and the creatures will hear you and attack.

A quick note: If you make too much noise, it’s a cutscene death. There is no escape. Some minor noises will alert them and they will come to investigate. Make another small noise while they’re investigating, and they will hear you and it’s a cutscene death. If they’re investigating and happen to bump into you, it’s a cutscene death. I’m unsure if I’m being clear here, so I’ll spell it out: I died a lot.

Survivors made noise traps around their homes to distract the creatures. You are able to disable them. Those events take precision and reflexes. Mess up and it’s a cutscene death. I should also point out that stealth is the name of the game from beginning to end. You do not find assault rifles or grenades to attack. 

Even on the easy settings that I prefer, the game is not easy. The game makers wanted you to feel the urgency, desperation, and limitation of living in this kind of environment. They were very successful.

Beauty Through and Through

The game is absolutely gorgeous. Despite largely taking place in the night, the environment is crisp and detailed. The player’s view is first-person. This allows you to look around and identify those stinking pop cans that I mentioned above and walk around them while also enjoying the excellent scenery and path towards the goal.

The locations are skillfully mapped. In one of the early missions, you must find a beam in order to cross a broken path. You’re in tight quarters and must find ways to set the beam down in one area, walk to the next area, and pull the beam forward. All the while avoiding the creature that is intently trying to find whatever is making noise. Yes, you’re at risk of turning around and bumping the beam that you’re carrying into anything around you (you guessed it, cutscene death).

Let’s talk about the sound. You’re being very quiet. Every twig, leaf, or tile floor that you come across shuffles or echoes with dread. The paths that are covered in sand are your best friend since the sand muffles your footsteps. Sadly, there weren’t many of those sandy paths. Remember, this is pretty early on in the creature invasion timeline. Most survivors haven’t figured a lot of things out. Being as quiet as it is, you can also hear when a creature is nearby. Sound queues keep your ears perked so that you know when to stop moving and look around to see where the creature is. Remember the robot animals in Horizon: Zero Dawn? They walked a predetermined perimeter/path while searching? The creatures are somewhat similar. If you sit and watch, you can discover their loop and plan out your movement based on that. Sound is a very active component to A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead whether it’s walking, evading, or planning.

The sound mixing is equally fantastic. The eerie music, sound effects, creature sound design, and more kept me on the edge of my seat for the entirety of my time with the game. 

Final Verdict

Stormind Games really cared about the product. The story, the graphics, the sound, and the game world are all impressively crafted to keep you engaged and driven to make it to the next area and survive. I’ll fully admit to getting frustrated enough to have to walk away when my deaths added up in certain areas. I also got bored with seeing the same death scene for the fifth time. 

If you can do better than me or just accept how often you will die, then A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is a game that anyone will enjoy. The game makers cared about giving the A Quiet Place universe a new option beyond film. Fans of stealth games, in particular, will fawn over every inch and puzzle within. Highly recommended.

To hear me talk more about A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead, be sure to listen to the October 24, 2024 episode of The Gaming Outsider podcast around the 1:07:21 time stamp.

This review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy of A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead provided by Sandbox Strategies for coverage purposes. It is also available on Xbox Series X/S and PC via Steam.