Summary
Horror tends to have the same tropes and motifs across most media and in games it is no different. Different subgenres and gameplay direction can orient a horror game one way or another, but comparisons and similarities are incredibly rampant between entries. It seems more difficult for horror games to be unique nowadays, too, with big-name monuments in the industry laying the brickwork for clones and remakes to follow.Horror isn’t the only genre in games that prominently features written notes or text legs, for example, but it’s certainly a genre that can make the most of them with haunting admissions and harrowing documents.
In many ways,A Quiet Place: The Road Aheadlooks like a horror game that’s been seen countless times now. Its degree of polish from what has been shown thus far is commendable, to be sure, but without the allure of its looming science-fiction IP it wouldn’t necessarily be unique in a stack of like-minded first-person horror. That said, whatA Quiet Place: The Road Aheadhas going for it, and what it should relish in, is the titular quiet moments of reflection and world-building that written text logs can provide in abundance.
Written Text Log Entries Can Be the Bulk of A Quiet Place’s Lore Dump
Many horror games are privy to written text logs that profoundly ascribe lore or context to their world—for example,Resident Evil’s iconic diary entry reading “Itchy. Tasty.”
BecauseStormind and Saber’sA Quiet Placegamewill at least chiefly need to abide by the rules established by its IP,The Road Aheadcould afford to stuff its world-building with plenty of written notes for players to read and gain an understanding of established events from the three months before it takes place. Three months isn’t a ton of time in the grand scheme, but for Alex Taylor and her companions that will have felt like a lifetime as they continue to live day to day in pure silence and avoid common pitfalls of sound-making.
Likewise, any number of fathomable occurrences would be fascinating to read about from other characters’ experiences, such as anyone who was holed up somewhere that Alex happens to pass through inThe Road Ahead. One of the reasonswhy the originalQuiet Placeis so immediately compellingis because of the tragically avoidable loss that the Abbott family suffers in the prologue, and similar circumstances are likely to have befallen any number of people whose critical missteps resulted in sorrow.
IfThe Road Aheaddoesn’t take the opportunity to indulge in text logs, though, its storytelling won’t necessarily be in jeopardy.The Road Aheadis fortunate enough to be inserting itself intoA Quiet Place’s canon, which is currently highly elementary: aliens suddenly struck the Earth in a meteor shower. This gives an open interpretation to whatever overarching science-fiction logic there could be to explain how such creatures arrived, butA Quiet Placehasn’t concerned itself with matters of that scale yet andThe Road Aheadisn’t expected to, either.
Still, it’s smaller matters like how a family is coping in such devastation and terror that could come across as lovely bits of world-building inA Quiet Place: The Road Ahead, and since characters will hopefully be mindful of their sound output at all times it would be great if written notes are not only how they communicate with one another but also how players receive lore about other characters they may not interact with.
A Quiet Place: The Road Aheadis scheduled for a release in 2024.
