We’re enjoying a golden age when it comes to quality video game adaptations. You’d think the acclaim of shows like The Last of Us and Fall out would be ushering in a new dawn of franchises that successfully straddle television, cinema and games, and yet here I am, slogging my way through yet another sterile, slow and offensively forgettable licensed offering that fails not only gamers experienced, but also any beginners. quite unfortunate to have chosen this the franchise is also entering gaming for the first time. It’s amazing, really, considering that the A Quiet Place movies are, on paper, perfect fodder for a terrifying video game adaptation.

For starters, much of the heavy lifting is already done. Consciousness, creature design, stealth mechanics – it’s all there, and the focus on stealth rather than combat was also the right call, given that it’s likely to appeal to many inexperienced players. However, with so many impressive raw ingredients, it’s kind of baffling how a game of such promise managed to squander almost all of the good stuff, and then some.

The premise of A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead should sound familiar if you’ve seen either film. You play as Alex, a young woman trying to survive in a world where an invasion of deadly creatures with acute hearing could wipe you out for something as simple as an inappropriate cough or a poorly hidden sneeze.

The opening two hours are also great. You’ll learn how to sneak open doors, hunt for resources, using the organic sounds of the world around you as a shield. You will understand the importance of staying on sandy paths and avoiding broken glass and treading carefully through puddles while also getting used to managing your asthma. There are also plenty of notes and letters to read – interestingly, the same survivors will appear in many of the notes you find throughout your adventure – and the environments, while not super memorable, are at least atmospheric.

So far, so good, especially as Alex’s story is further complicated by interpersonal drama, an unplanned pregnancy, a love of music and singing—a pastime that’s essentially a death sentence here, of course—and her chronic condition of health that is exacerbated by dust, exertion and stress.

Scratch just a little deeper, though, and it all falls strangely flat. I could have come to care about this aforementioned drama if the game only allowed us to spend time, let alone bond, with characters it wants us to care about, but, well, it doesn’t so. As a result, their behaviors feel strange at best and downright unpleasant at worst because we don’t know them well enough to understand their motivations. Consequently, the carefully choreographed emotional sequences of A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead – of which there is a lot – you are not short, mainly because these emotional blows are not earned or justified, but still with shoes.

Also, Alex’s asthma is an interesting addition here, and environmental triggers like dust felt authentic until he started using his calmer pump every few minutes and throwing out his pills on her neck, despite that early revelation of her pregnancy. At first it’s easy to brush these inconsistencies off by hand, but the more you see, the harder it is to i don’t see them… and then you meet monsters.

You move into a world inhabited by deadly aliens with amazingly good hearing, just as you’d expect: carefully. Every step you take, door you open, drawer you open – anyone could be your death. A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead approaches its opening hour with admirable restraint, and while the endless tutorials and blobs of red and yellow paint can annoy, you can turn off the more unsubtle aspects of its hand-holding in the settings.

But while you’ll spend the first hour itching for some action, you’ll spend the rest of the 9-10 hours of gameplay just wanting the super-vigilant AI creature to calm down. What begins as a tense and stressful game of hide and seek becomes essentially only thing you ever do, and since the rules around their hearing and abilities are amazingly inconsistent, these endless heist sequences become increasingly frustrating, not least because they don’t understand what the hell they want.

They want eat US? It doesn’t seem. Do they hate us because the noises we make hurt their sensitive ears? May be. But that doesn’t explain why they’d keep hanging out in places with hissing steam pipes and the like, does it? We eventually find that naturally loud places like waterfalls are the best because they drown out everyday sounds, but if that’s the case, why doesn’t Alex set up camp there for good? Why the hell don’t people carry WD-40 with them to counter the endless army of deadly creaking doors? More seriously, and more related to the game at hand: how can a creature hear me stomp on a leaf from three cities over, but I can use an inhaler ten feet away without being imposed upon? And why the hell are people running with GUNSfor Christ’s sake! Do they have a death wish?!

I wouldn’t mind if these sequences were used sparingly, but they are endless and at times it feels like the monsters are purposely rubber banding the player in a way that isn’t challenging, just plain annoying, especially with such linear level design, they have to pass through water, or step on glass, to progress. You’ll be able to play with a few more props a bit later, but again, the inconsistencies around dropped objects – can throw this brick, but no that one, for some reason? Serious? – and Alex’s unwavering aim means they often do more harm than good.

But the most egregious part of these boring cat-and-mouse chases is the sound design. While the music itself is tense enough, the musical spikes programmed to go off every time you make even the slightest noise – regardless of whether or not a creature is nearby – are incredibly annoying, repeatedly going off regardless whether or not it is a creature. it’s actually close. At worst, make too much noise in quick succession and it’s an unstable death anyway, again regardless of whether there’s a monster behind you.

Playing with microphone noise detection on is cool, sure, but wise given that it was Alex’s noise that killed me every time, not mine. Her sound meter – a piece of kit that shows the noise she makes in relation to the ambient sounds around her – is equally interesting, but its use is also extremely inconsistent and completely unreliable in areas where creatures are chasing you. Almost every great idea here fails in execution.

As a lifelong horror fan, I ate good of late. The Land of Crows, Indika, It still awakens the deep, Remake of Silent Hill 2 – there have been a lot of deliciously dark games. And despite this year’s terrible crop, A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead’s swagger and hidden mechanics were intriguing enough to make it onto my wishlist. How disappointing, then, to have to report such a dismal experience from a game that promises so much. I could forgive a boring story if the gameplay was exciting, just as I could overlook forgettable eco-designs if I cared about the characters. As it is, A Quiet Place: The Road’s Ahead doesn’t quite work nothingwhich makes for a hopelessly dull, repetitive adventure that fails to excite or challenge in any meaningful way. What a pity.

A copy of A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead was provided for review by Saber Interactive.