A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead review

If I was caught up in an alien invasion where any sound draws the murderous extra-terrestrials to my location, I would be screwed. I’ve got two girls who won’t stop talking about the latest bit of Taylor Swift lore and having a 20-minute rundown of the school drama for the day. Pair that with my clumsiness and it’s a given that it’s probably going to end badly for me. Playing A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead brought these fears to life, especially when my daughters literally sent me to an early grave my talking in the background.

While not quite as terrifying as Alien: Isolation, Stormind Games has managed to build a game filled with tension and poignancy, building a personal story with all the terror seen in the brilliant movies that the game is based on. You play as Alex, a young woman who goes through a tragedy in the opening moments of the story. From there, she has to avoid being ripped apart by these aliens and escape to safety, all while dealing with her asthma and newly discovered pregnancy.

It’s a lot to deal with in normal day-to-day life, but when you’re spending every waking second avoiding the threat of creepy aliens ready to kill you at a moment’s notice, it’s almost unbearable. That fear is instilled every step of the way, and you’re constantly tip-toeing through abandoned buildings and in the open air. The littlest sound can trigger these abominations, and there’re enough opportunities to draw them to you simply by stepping on the wrong thing.

It can become frustrating at the amount of paint cans lying about, even when you’re walking through the woods. Who the bloody hell left them there?! Walking through a puddle or lowering a vent door too quickly, trampling over glass or opening a door without caution. All these things will lead the monsters to your door. The biggest problem with A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is how slowly you have to move for a lot of the story. It can take ages getting from one end of the corridor to the other, and when you’re doing that in every new area, it can become a little frustrating.

Not only do you have to be cautious when moving, Alex is an asthmatic, and exerting too much energy can lead to her having an attack. You can run, but it will cause the lungs icon to turn yellow, then to orange, then to red, leading to an asthma attack. Sneaking around an alien will also raise the chances of an attack, as will anything too strenuous. There are inhalers and pills lying around which can be used to calm her down, and while they’re not hard to find, there’s not an unlimited supply.

Alex has a few tools to help her survive. One of which is the homemade phonometer which reads the decibels made from everything you do. It allows you to monitor sound as well as how aware the alien is of you, giving you an idea of how far you can push it. One of the coolest features of A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is the ‘Microphone Noise Detection’ feature. Real world sounds are picked up through your controller, meaning any noises you make can send you to an early grave. It’s optional, but it’s well worth having on for fun. My eldest decided to shout “boobies” at the top of her voice, and yeah, you know what happened next.

You also get a torch that requires batteries to keep lit, and using too much can mean it breaks at the worst possible moment. You need to see what objects are lying around on the floor at all times, and having it die when you’re in the middle of a car park as the creature is lurking around is not fun. You can pick up bricks or bottles to distract them, giving you a small moment of respite, but there’re plenty of times when I felt hopeless. That fear factor makes much of your time with A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead so exciting.

With silence so integral to how you play, there’s a lot of opportunities to take in the story. Documents are strewn about environments, all painting personal stories of those struggling to stay alive in the wake of the invasion. Alex’s story is emotional and well-orchestrated, even if it looses steam towards the end. It may not be as good as Day One or the original film that kickstarted the franchise, but it’s definitely worthy of its place within the larger world.

A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is tense affair, making you think about every step you take and every decision you make. The pacing is slow which might put off some people, but it perfectly captures the tone of the movies. The story is interesting, and the way the world is built through various notes, pictures, and environments is fantastic. It’s hard not to warm to Alex as she struggles with her asthma and being pregnant in the worst kind of situation, especially after witnessing Emily Blunt’s bathtub scene from the first movie. Get ready for the thrill of your life, even if it can be frustrating at times.