'A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead:' the worst of the franchise?

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For the second time this year, the “A Quiet Place” franchise returns with another prequel, this time in the form of a first-person horror/survival video game similar to “Alien: Isolation” (2014).

“A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead” puts you into the shoes of Alex Taylor (Anairis Quinones), a young pregnant woman with asthma seeking survival alongside her boyfriend Martin Edwards (Aleks Le) with the assistance of Alex’s dad Kenneth (Jason Hightower) and Martin’s mom Laura (Cathy Cavadini).

The game also features intercut flashbacks to the events of Day 1 from Alex’s POV to help establish her backstory and provide insight into her emotional ties with the characters featured in the story.

I found the best of these emotional scenes to be when Alex tells Martin she’s pregnant, when a character sacrifices themselves for Alex (remaining unnamed to avoid spoilers) and when Kenneth tells Alex about her mother in an effort to encourage her.

As said previously, the game is similar to “Alien: Isolation” as you must stealthily maneuver your way through environments and missions.

This can also be done with your own microphone on which is a feature that works very well as I swallowed too loudly once and was instantly killed.

The game gives Alex tools to aid her survival. One of the tools you’ll use most commonly is a noise detector that shows the sound of the environment compared to the sound you’re making.

Another tool is a cutter that is used to disarm sound traps composed of empty glass bottles dangling from a rope.

These traps are extremely frustrating as the marker to tell you when to release L2/R2 (I played this on PS5, so the buttons may be different if you’re on another system) is hardly visible, resulting in a Death Angel killing me every single time.

In addition to tools, medical supplies are vital to Alex’s survival as well. As a person with asthma, she must use an inhaler or take pills to manage her lung strength and keep her stress levels low.

This mechanic works well in gameplay as it’s very tense when you’re forced to use an inhaler right near a Death Angel, the monsters of the “A Quiet Place” franchise.

Visually the game is solid as environments feel and sound highly realistic, but character animations within the world aren’t the strongest.

Most scenes have awkward walking physics or facial animations that don’t match sync up with the words being spoken.

While I do like the environments, I am constantly reminded that I’m playing a game as objects in the environment you can climb over are always highlighted with yellow spray paint.

I don’t mind this for helping players understand what can and cannot be climbed, but having everything stay marked takes me out of the immersion.

There are other things that take me out of the immersion simply for how unrealistic they are within this universe.

Without naming spoilers, these unrealistic aspects include Alex’s asthma, surviving the events of Day 1 while speeding down a road filled with Death Angels, a killed character magically reappearing and two “tropes” seen previously in the franchise at the end of the introductory mission and at the end of the final mission (remaining vague to avoid spoilers).

“A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead” features gameplay on par with that of “Alien: Isolation” and tells an emotionally solid story but fails to fully immerse me in the gameplay with frustrating obstacles, gameplay elements covering up the environment, an uncommitted death and nothing new being truly added to the franchise as two “tropes” find their way into the game.

While I do enjoy the game and think it’s very fun, it has more flaws than the rest of the franchise’s installments making it to be the worst of the franchise thus far.

“A Quiet Place: Day One” — ★ ★ ★ ★

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Release Date: October 17, 2024

Developer: Stormind Games

Publisher: Saber Interactive

Systems: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC

Rating: Mature (M)