Backlog Busters: ‘Open Roads’ Is A Thoughtful But Bumpy Ride

Welcome back to Backlog Busters, a column dedicated to clearing our never-ending video game backlog. Today we’re embarking on a journey with Open Roads, a short narrative adventure from the team behind Gone Home.

Here’s what you need to know: Tess Devine and her mother, Opal, discover a cache of old notes and letters carefully stashed away in the attic of their house. Hints of deep-rooted family secrets, decades-old burglaries, and a lost treasure somewhere near the Canadian border leads them on an unforgettable mother-daughter road trip.

Developed by: Open Roads Team

Played on: Xbox Game Pass

Length: 3 hours


The year is 2003. The internet is new and smartphones haven’t been invented yet. You still use a flip phone, and yes, it does have that classic Nokia ringtone. This is the familiar world of Open Roads, a narrative adventure about a mother and daughter who embark on a road trip they will not soon forget.

Developed by the creators of indie classic Gone Home, Open Roads feels like a fitting spiritual successor — at least mechanically. Much like its predecessor, the game unfolds like a trip to the antique shop. The more time you spend picking out objects in the environment, the more stories you uncover as Tess and Opal chime in with anecdotes and memories from the past.

There’s a lot about the game that feels like manufactured nostalgia, but not enough that it feels overdone. I still found myself charmed by the ancient text messaging lingo and the retro interior design, while its hand-animated characters harkened back to the hours I spent binge-watching old Disney movies as a child. This is only made better with outstanding voice acting by Keri Russell (The Americans, Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker) and Kaitlyn Dever (Uncharted 4, The Last of Us Season 2), which is easily the main highlight of the entire game.

Despite having the makings of a typical feel-good game, Open Roads ventures into some decidedly feel-bad territories with its narrative. It becomes clear that Tess and Opal don’t have the picture perfect mother-daughter relationship we think they have, and at the heart of their conflict lies a family mystery that threatens to strain their relationship even further.

While it maintains a mostly light-hearted tone throughout, the struggles of these characters are painfully realistic. Tess resents her mother for her actions, but still feels a longing to understand her reasoning; while Opal struggles to relate to her daughter’s problems, as she actively ignores her own repressed trauma. Open Roads does a good job of characterising the generational divide between these characters, steadily building the conflict to a hilt as we reach the climax of the larger mystery.

And boy, is the mystery a large one. To its credit, the game manages to wrap up most if not all of its loose ends within 3 to 4 hours, but it is an exposition dump at the finish line. There’s barely enough time to emotionally digest the revelations before credits begin rolling. Meanwhile, Tess and Opal’s willingness to brush past their conflict only serves to remove all emotional weight from the story in the final stretch.

From a game with a promising beginning, to an ending that left me feeling confused at best, Open Roads may just be the definition of “it’s the journey that matters, not the destination.” Maybe if this road trip had a few more stops along the way, and some breathing room for the emotions to settle in, the destination could matter as much as the journey.


Verdict: A Road Trip Cut Too Short

Developed by the creators of indie classic Gone Home, Open Roads is an intriguing family mystery melded with enough manufactured nostalgia to make you wish you still owned a flip phone. Keri Russell and Kaitlyn Dever deliver stellar vocal performances as the mother-daughter duo, but we wish there were a few more stops along the way to lend its story more breathing room and emotional weight.

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