Open Roads Review: "Feels A Little Behind Its Peers"

screenrant.com:

Annapurna Interactive is a publisher that has always had an eye for the interesting. Whether it's the mind-bending time loop of , the abstract exploration of the American Dream in, or the future feline capers of, there is often something enticing under the surface. Enter , from developer Open Roads Team, the latest game from Annapurna Interactive's stable.

is a light adventure game, the kind of title that some would call a walking simulator. It tells the story of Tess and Opal, a mother and daughter taking part in a road trip to answer some long-forgotten family questions. Along the way, the pair will explore their own relationship and find some very unexpected answers to their own family history.

Open Roads is a solid enough walking sim with some faults that may turn people away.

These kind of narrative-driven games rely on the quality of the writing, and here is something of a mixed bag. It's a game that is very heavily weighted towards the personal relationship side of storytelling moreso than the mystery itself, but this can feel artificial at times. Rather than the character-driven drama that aims to be, instead, it falls more on the side of the soap opera, always feeling slightly too forced in its approach.

That said, the writing is not poor by any means, and the player will very much believe the dynamics between Tess and Opal throughout. However, there is a clumsiness at times, especially around the game's central mystery that slowly comes to light, where discovered evidence is often too blunt to really feel authentic. In comparison to some of the greatest games to be given the walking simulator categorization, such as and, perhaps doesn't feel quite as delicate or deep.

players looking for more dialogue between Tess and Opal should make sure they explore as much as they can, as conversations can be kicked off from the smallest of items that Tess finds.

That being said, those shortcomings are nearly mitigated by the excellent performances of the voice