Open Roads

Open Roads from developer Open Roads Team is a personal and powerful journey that is driven by a solid story and fantastic acting, and supported by small amounts of interactive moments.

The game is a snapshot of the lives of three women, uncovered over the course of a few days, the discoveries they make about each other, and how the whole experience brings them closer together. And like most people’s lives, it’s not all action, dungeon crawling, and loot collecting. It’s mainly emotions, arguments, secrets, heartache, and love; in other words, what the game has to offer simply won’t seem very interesting to everybody. But for anybody looking to spend a relaxing afternoon with a heartwarming tale, taking a brief road trip with Tess and Opal in Open Roads may be just the answer.

Open Roads has the writing and narrative most games only dream of. I felt for and felt like the protagonist and her mom throughout the journey, sympathizing with their human struggles. The hand-drawn art blended with 3D environments is flawless, even if that’s sometimes hard to focus on with the game’s few technical rough patches. The title, though short, is full of twists, turns, and authenticity.

It’s clear that Open Roads is a passion project, one filled with personal touches, love and its team’s personality. But it’s also a triumph: Tess and Opal’s story is gripping, and you’ll eat up every minute of their road trip mystery, hanging onto every word of their conversation. Add to that a unique and beautiful art style, some incredible voice performances and so many nostalgia-inducing objects to nosy at, and you’re left with a truly memorable experience. It’s just a shame that it’s all over so very, very quickly.

Open Roads is a heartfelt and captivating journey made more interesting by its mother-daughter leads.

Open Roads is a touching love letter to grief, the breaking of generational cycles and the complexities of family relationships. Dever and Russell’s performances are at once invigorating and heart-wrenching, demonstrating a genuine passion for acting throughout the game. The interactive environment feels lived-in and authentic to the early 2000s, adding another layer of immersion to the player's experience. While the voice acting is impressive, the characters’ appearance and facial movements become repetitive around the thirty-minute mark, diminishing some of the emotional beats in the story. Overall, Open Roads is a must-play poignant experience for fans of visual novels.

Open Roads is a brief, affecting tale that isn’t going to change lives or revolutionize gaming, but it is undeniably charming and comfortable despite its difficult themes. By this point, you’ll know if you’re the kind of gamer for this, but if you’re still on the fence about the quality, rest assured that Open Roads feels lovingly crafted and has a distinctly human story to tell. If you were at Tess’ age, like me, in 2003, you may get even more out of it, though your mileage may vary.

Engrossing and enjoyable for its brief run time, Open Roads tells a quiet, witty story of discovery that spans three generations of women. Though it never veers into melodrama, I found the narrative to be engaging and intriguing. Great performances lend a realism to the well-written characters. If you think Open Roads seems like something you might enjoy, you are likely right.

Open Roads is a lovely way to spend 90 minutes or so. All of the elements by and large come together harmoniously in service of a story that had me hooked, and the two strong central performances elevate the entire piece. I can’t ask for much more than that.

Open Roads is the quintessential Annapurna Interactive video game. There are prominent actors giving authentic performances in a story that’s beautifully written, there’s a unique approach to art direction, and the music is top-of-the-line. I didn’t vibe with all of the design decisions, but it’s impossible to walk away from Open Roads without feeling at least a little contemplative about your own life journey and relationships.

A few inconsistencies took me out of the experience, but Open Roads is cuts above a Lifetime movie. Through its evocative voice acting, it captures the necessity of communicating what’s been left unsaid, however distressing it may be, for a relationship to move forward.

Open Roads is a nice little narrative adventure that scores through its visuals, good writing, and excellent voice cast. It's pretty short and linear, and not all aspects of the story were quite as well executed as others. Overall, it's a great narrative indie game that feels like a natural extension of Gone Home.

Although Open Roads gives no reason to make this game’s North American road trip an annual fixture on the calendar, the adventure itself is one worth experiencing. It’s a family affair that welcomes you into its inner sanctum and leaves you in a state of adoration over its leading ladies’ sincere performances.

With a brief runtime of a couple of hours, Open Roads is a respectable tale that sometimes feels ready to hit that higher narrative gear before easing off the gas again. Although visually pleasing and well-acted, the emotional impact is muted. While I didn’t mind sitting shotgun as Opal and Tess had lighthearted debates over the semantics of trailer vs. mobile homes and reminisced about old flames, it’s not a road trip that will stick with me for the long haul.

It’s a great thing that Open Roads is an incredibly short experience, because when it comes to actually playing it, there just isn’t much there. Thankfully, its story and characters do more than enough to make experiencing Open Roads worthwhile, at least once.

Open Roads' mother-daughter travelog about discovering long-buried family secrets is heartfelt, but this lightweight driving adventure doesn't reach the momentum of the mystery it so carefully maps out.

Open Roads is a very well-executed story about the relationship between a grieving mother and daughter. Both characters are incredibly likable and there is so much chemistry between the voice actors that it’s easy to relate to and care about both of them. While it’s a short experience and one that could benefit from further expansion and animation, Open Roads still has a lot to offer. It’s just a shame it finishes a little earlier than expected because the narrative is strong enough to carry beyond its credits.

Open Roads offers a heartfelt, human story set in our world, focusing on the journey of a teenage girl and her mother as they unravel family mysteries. Despite its engaging narrative and top-notch voice acting, the game feels dated in gameplay design, lacking the innovation of similar titles like Gone Home and Tacoma. The exploration of emotions and relationships is its strength, but its gameplay mechanics and visual presentation fall short of expectations.

Open Roads is a short but emotionally stirring character drama that is, fittingly, more about the journey than the destination, without so much as a speed bump challenge to slow you down in the latest narrative adventure from the creators of Gone Home.

Overall, Open Roads is a mixed bag. Although the game's performances are strong and the story at a high level hits the right notes, its smaller details may feel a little melodramatic and forced. Meanwhile, the game's very basic general gameplay is a step behind some of its walking simulator peers, which can lead to it feeling a little dated despite some of its clear innovations. It's a solid enough game that those interested in the genre should give Open Roads a try, but it won't appeal to anyone who doesn't already quite enjoy these sorts of walking simulator-style journeys.

While some walking sims have evolved, Open Roads is stuck in the past. Its two good characters cannot offset the bland interactivity and mystery that is as flat as the game's 2D conversations.

It's unfortunate that "letdown" and "underwhelmed" are words I've used multiple times when talking about Open Roads because there's still so much about the game that works. The overall narrative touches on some meaningful topics, there's a fair amount of intrigue, plenty of well-crafted dialogue, some interesting characters, and a lot of heart. Yet most things fall frustratingly short or are cut off far too early, making the whole experience slightly lackluster. Despite being a game about a mother-daughter road trip, the game doesn't go too far and that relationship is left only slightly altered rather than meaningfully examined and changed.

All of which combines to make Open Roads an experience that's pleasant to drift along to. The moment-to-moment uncovering of the mystery and your family history is gently absorbing, and provides the catalyst Opal and Tess need - mother and daughter - to come to some realisations of their own. Those thorny familial realisations are handled maturely and end up in a nice place of understanding, which I appreciate, and likely you'll end up with a warm glow from the game, as I did. It's a nice day out. It's just that as soon as it seems to get going, it's over and you're on your way home.

Open Roads’ gameplay may not stun and its visuals are not exactly the most groundbreaking. However, it at least dares to bring something new to the canon of video games by telling a humanistic story in the gaming medium, a brief tale historically conveyed through literature. Perhaps Open Roads would’ve worked better if it was part of an anthology of short games with the same theme, but somehow despite its flaws, it still remains a valiant attempt at telling a short story through a game.

Propelled by a star-studded cast and charming retro world, Open Roads' tale of family tragedy stumbles over its heavier themes, delivering an earnest but ultimately safe road trip mystery. Pottering through meticulous environments full of kitschy decor was at least enough to keep me entertained for its short runtime. However, with sharp teeth and no bite, I was left hungry for something meatier and more emotionally charged by the time the credits rolled.

Pleasant but rarely compelling characters undermine this spiritual sequel to Gone Home.

Though it packs plenty of nostalgia and a lovely art style, Open Roads lacks the most important part of a narrative adventure – at least for me – a memorable and impactful story. Genre regulars may want to take a chance as the time investment is low, but for my money I’d much rather replay What Remains of Edith Finch or even one of this team’s prior efforts like Tacoma.

As narrative adventures go, this is like the wonky piece of pottery we find after packing up Tess's things: handsomely rendered but misshapen and disappointingly empty. [Issue#397, p.110]