Open Roads review: A bittersweet trail of nostalgia, secrets, and memories

Open Roads is about the relationship between two pairs of mother-daughters belonging to the same family. We play as 16-year-old Tess as she and her mother, Opal, clear up the house and prepare to leave it after the death of her grandmother, Helen. One thing leads to another, and soon I found myself on a road trip, tracing my way through Tess' family history and the memories that revolve around it.

I went into Open Roads without much idea about its premise, the people involved, or what the gameplay is like. The only thing I knew of it was an image of Tess and Opal driving through the countryside.

Now that I have completed the game and sat down to pen my thoughts, I must admit that I hesitated about how I would rate this game. To be honest, Open Roads does not re-invent the formula of a narrative game or push the boundaries of the genre it resides in. But not all games have to do that.

What it does is poignantly eke out the troubles and complexities of a relationship between a child and their parent. The dialog and the scenes struck a chord, and the game design and esthetics drove it home. But more on that later; let's dive into the review properly.

Open Roads is driven by Tess (voiced by Kaitlyn Dever) and Opal (voiced by Keri Russell) and their quest to find out about the supposed affair between Tess' recently deceased grandmother and an unknown man who settled in Canada. The actors must be commended for how they bring the characters to life. Without that, I am quite sure the game wouldn't have had the same impact.

The gameplay is quite simple and straightforward - a first-person title where you walk around the gamespace and interact with items. Many of these objects will prompt reactions from Tess or allow her to call for