Open Roads

Open Roads is primarily a walking simulator: the player, in their role as Tess, traverse an environment in which they can inspect objects in their environment. Certain objects, when observed, can prompt Tess to discuss the object with her mother, Opal - this is done with hand-drawn cutscenes; some conversations may involve a dialogue tree where the player must choose from certain options, which occasionally alter future conversations, slightly. Areas in the environments may be locked, requiring the player to find other ways to enter them.

In 2003, 16-year-old Theresa "Tess" Devine (Kaitlyn Dever) is helping her single mother Opal (Keri Russell) clear out their home in Greenville, Michigan after the death of Opal's mother Helen, and the house is sold. Looking through the attic, Tess finds a hidden compartment with a suitcase containing a small key and a postcard addressed to Helen by an unnamed man who implies that Helen had a romantic relationship after her husband Leo died of a heart attack; after Opal mentions that the family has a summer house, Tess theorizes the key opens something there and implores Opal to take her on a road trip to investigate, which Opal reluctantly agrees. During the trip, conversations reveal that as their home is sold, Opal is struggling to put together a plan for the two to find a home, and that she never revealed details of her divorce to Tess.

At the derelict summer house, after finding various clues about the family, Tess and Opal use the key to open Helen's old rolltop desk, and find a note with an address in Ontario, Canada, and a message that implies that the man writing the note, Pierre Lautrec, is in fact Opal's real father. Tess convinces Opal to extend the road trip to the Canadian address, and they embark on the next leg of the trip, during which Tess - who has a good relationship with her father - upsets Opal, and she reveals that she divorced her husband because he announced he wanted to move to Nevada to become a professional poker player; Tess, in turn, reveals that she has already bought plane tickets to visit him.

Open Roads was announced on December 10, 2020, at The Game Awards 2020, and was created by the same development team behind Gone Home. The development of Open Roads originally began under the umbrella of Fullbright; however, in August 2021, Polygon published a report about founder Steve Gaynor's alleged toxic behavior causing team members to leave. In a Fullbright newsletter sent in May 2023, Gaynor announced that he was no longer working on Open Roads, and development will be credited to The Open Roads Team at launch, while Gaynor will retain the Fullbright name for his own projects. The game was initially scheduled to release for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on February 22, 2024, but was delayed to March 28.

Open Roads received "mixed or average" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator website Metacritic. Fellow review aggregator OpenCritic assessed that the game received fair approval, being recommended by 37% of critics.

CGMagazine gives it an 8 out of 10 for a heartfelt and captivating journey that was made more interesting by its mother-daughter leads with its endearing characters and a genuine sense of style.