Open Roads review – a pleasant road trip that doesn’t go anywhere particularly memorable
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
A gentle adventure into a family’s secrets that’s nicely crafted but over before it really begins.
I had some concerns about Open Roads when I saw a demo of it earlier this year, mostly because in what I saw, nothing much seemed to happen. A teenage girl walked around a house looking at objects and talked to her mother about them. We were promised a family mystery but there was barely any sight of it, and I wondered when it would all kick in. Now having played it, I realise why that was: there wasn’t much there to tease to begin with. Open Roads is a slight game, I now know, both in terms of running length and scope. There aren’t grand ambitions or wild adventures. Instead, there’s a story about smaller details, about the seemingly mundane but no less important moments when relationships change, and about the imprints we leave behind.
In the game, you are Tess, a teenager who serves as the spark in the story. It’s her curiosity, following the death of her grandma, that provokes the discovery you’ll make, which leads to the adventure you’ll have, and it’s her tenacity that sees it through. It all begins in your grandma’s house, which you and your mother shared with her up until her death, and which you’re now packing to leave. Why you’re leaving is something you don’t immediately know – like so much else in the game, you’ll discover it as you go along.
