Recently we talked about A Quiet Place getting a video game adaptation. For those unfamiliar with the series let’s help bring you up to speed. The original film starring Emily Blunt and John Krasinki came out back in 2018. They play parents who are trying to survive as well as raise their children in a post-apocalyptic world. The world has been inhabited by blind aliens who also have an acute e sense of hearing. The film gained a sequel and a prequel and a now that post-apocalyptic world has been brought to gamers. Welcome to A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead.
A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is a spin of the story from the events seen in the films. It is also a stealth-focused game as you would expect in the survival horror genre. So what else can we tell you? We play as a young girl called Alex. She is a college student who also suffers asthma and along with her boyfriend Martin is trying to survive the world they find themselves in. Now thanks to Steam we can break down the features.
Game Features For Our Journey Into The Silence
Unnerving Atmosphere –Experience absolute terror as you strive for silence when hiding from, and sneaking by, horrific creatures who hunt using only sound.
Untold Story — Embark on a dramatic adventure inspired by the A Quiet Place movie franchise as a young survivor trying to navigate the new, eerily tranquil, post-apocalyptic landscape.
Uncanny Ingenuity — Discover your own path through the world by observing your environment and leveraging the tools in your surroundings.
We also see from the listing about the optional “Microphone Noise Detection” setting. What this means is the creatures can and will react to “sounds that you make through a connected microphone or headset”.
How A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead Shapes Up When You Play
Visually the game looks good and as we know is using Unreal Engine 5. For me, I feel visually doesn’t look as realistic as Silent Hill 2. Although we are looking at different studios and different approaches. It feels very much like a survival horror much like the likes of Silent Hill 2 or recent Resident Evil remakes. Though this title feels very different, this requires more stealth to survive than other titles in the genre. However look at what we face in say Resident Evil 2, zombies. Where here the threat is an alien that has wiped out most of the human population and navigates by sound. What this means is we have to be super quiet, not just moving in the game but with the noise detection in person as well.
Moving around you have an icon on the bottom right that flashes if you’re too noisy. And walking over gravel, through water can be treacherous. How fast you move can mean the difference between death and survival. Empty cans on the floor can be knocked, and broken pottery on the ground can make a noise. This means the game is a very slow-paced, stealth-focused survival experience. Where you may run from Mr X in Resident Evil or the mannequins in Silent Hill 2 you can’t really risk it here. The game feels so much better for it as well and so far is a smooth but intense gameplay experience. Not only have we sound to worry about but we have to manage our character, Alex’s physical and mental stress levels. This becomes too high she suffers an asthma attack.
The Noise Detection Implementation
It’s a good use of technology in the genre, giving an experience similar to the likes of Alien Isolation. This used features on the Kinect that was available for the early Xbox One consoles. So for playing the game on PlayStation 5 this is what the game tells us. If we have the enable microphone feature enabled it really alters the experience. It allows the microphone in the DualSense to “track the noise level of your room whilst you play”. Then we get told if we make a loud noise the creatures might hear us. If you turn it on you can toggle the minimum sound threshold as well as the noise detection conversion sensitivity. So you can bring the fear as close to you as possible.
A Summary
With dealing with stress levels to manage your character’s asthma along with trying to stay quiet with a microphone on, we have a unique horror experience. From what I have experienced in the early stages this is well implemented into the game design. I’m impressed with what I’ve played in the opening hours though the playing in complete silence may put people off. The slower pace may also not be everyone’s taste either.
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