Open Roads – a quiet adventure (Picture:Annapurna Interactive)

Keri Russell stars in a new interactive drama from the makers of Gone Home and Tacoma, but what kind of story is it trying to tell?

An overly long development cycle usually means only one of two things: an absolute classic, years in the making, or a complete disaster that never comes together. Landmark failures like Duke Nukem Forever, or the wonderfully terrible Daikatana, are joined by less high-profile casualties such as Homefront, which basically killed Kaos Studios in the process of its inception. Indie studios aren’t immune to this problem, as anyone associated with defunct developer Fullbright would be able to tell you.

The studio was responsible for Gone Home and its mildly disappointing follow-up, Tacoma , before staff rebelled against poor treatment by founder Steve Gaynor and the company disintegrated after 15 of them quit. Open Roads was the game they were working on when things went south and it has now been finished and released by Open Roads Team, an outfit pulled together from the smoking rubble of Fullbright.

It’s easy to see why they elected to finish it, because, on paper at least, it’s a compelling proposition. Billed as an interactive movie mystery thriller, it features a mother-daughter road trip in which they seek to uncover long-buried family secrets. It stars Keri Russell, who’s been in everything from Mission Impossible 3 to Cocaine Bear, and Booksmart’s Kaitlyn Dever.

Set in 2003, it’s surprising how long ago the setting feels. It’s a world of flip phones, text messaging, and dead Tamagotchis, at a time when social media meant posting on a forum. Monitors were fat rather than flat, and Netflix was a small-time mail order competitor to Blockbuster Video. In other words: simpler times.

Tess Devine is 16 and her grandma’s just died. She and her mother, Opal, have to move out of the house they were living in to care for her, and clear out their old ‘summer house’, a derelict mobile home in the middle of nowhere. It gives them time to chat, reminisce, and work out what to do next.

Tess’s father is out of the picture, and although they still text one another, it’s clear a schism has occurred, even if at the start of the game you’re left to wonder what that might have been, given the amicability of all involved. As Tess helps pack the last bits and pieces, she picks up items of interest, calling Opal over to talk about each of them.

Open Roads – there aren’t really any puzzles as such (Picture:Annapurna Interactive)

‘Hey mom,’ she says, over and over again, as she examines each piece of memorabilia, triggering a short, partially animated cut scene where she and Opal engage in a bit of nostalgia farming. However, most things she picks up don’t do anything. You can still rotate them to see every angle, but you rapidly discover that there’s nothing whatsoever to see, and that looking at every surface is entirely pointless.

It’s a process that immediately sets off the controller’s haptic feedback, so each time you look at something, for some reason your palms vibrate, which is the first sign that outside the central performances, much about Open Roads feels rough and unfinished.

The next sign is the lack of anything much to do. There are occasional dialogue choices, some of which you can use to create minor spats between the main characters, but none of which seem to have much narrative consequence. A great many conversations have nothing to do beyond listening and watching the still frame cartoon animation.

That’s a problem when not much actually happens in the story either. Mother and daughter drift from their former home to their dilapidated summer house, to a houseboat across the border in Ontario, in an attempt to unearth grandma’s secret past, but in each location all you do is pick up objects, say ‘Hey mom’, and listen to the brief interlude that follows.

Open Roads – a not-very-interactive movie (Picture:Annapurna Interactive)

Sometimes you’ll find a locked door or drawer, and then moments later the very key you need to open them, only to discover that inside is yet another postcard, old letter, or press clipping, each of which offers a ham-fisted piece of plot exposition.

With no puzzles, few dialogue options, and nothing to see when you examine objects, Open Roads feels dishearteningly non-interactive. But if you transposed its content into a film or TV episode, you’d end up with a show whose plot was so flimsy it’s practically non-existent.

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It doesn’t even compare with fellow interactive thriller As Dusk Falls , which had interesting characters, dramatic tension, and a sense that your decisions were meaningful. What you get in Open Roads is a realistic interplay in conversations between mother and daughter, but almost nothing else. For most of its runtime it doesn’t even have music or sound effects.

Clocking in at under three hours, from wistful intro to trite finale, Open Roads is a slim piece of lightly interactive entertainment that feels woefully unfinished. From the absence of narrative engagement and lack of player choice, to the strange silence that envelops most of it, this feels more like a first draft than a finished product, which is a pity given its unusual setting and the strength of its actors.




Open Roads review summary In Short: A barely-interactive movie that follows a mother and daughter road trip that is disappointingly short on both drama and meaningful choices.
Pros: Solid voice acting and a neat cartoon art style. Realistic bickering between mother and daughter.
Cons: Barely interactive and yet still highly repetitive. Inconsequential plot.
Score: 4/10



Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and PC Price: £15.99 Publisher: Annapurna Interactive Developer: Open Roads Team Release Date: 28th March 2024 Age Rating: 12





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