Kentucky Route Zero: PC Edition
KENTUCKY ROUTE ZERO is a magical realist adventure game about a secret highway running through the caves beneath Kentucky, and the mysterious folks who travel it.
Kentucky Route Zero: PC Edition is a adventure, atmospheric and indie game
developed and published by Cardboard Computer.
Released on February 22nd 2013 is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux
in 17 languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Russian, Spanish - Latin America, Japanese, Arabic, Korean, Polish, Portuguese - Brazil, Simplified Chinese, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese and Turkish.
It has received 4,015 reviews of which 3,233 were positive and 782 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.8 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 22.99€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Kentucky Route Zero: PC Edition into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Kentucky Route Zero: PC Edition through various videos and screenshots.
Requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS:Windows
- Processor:1 GHz
- Memory:512 MB RAM
- Graphics:Directx 9.0c compatible video card
- DirectX®:9.0c
- Hard Drive:2.5GB HD space
- Sound:Sound card
MacOS
- OS:OSX
- Processor:1 GHz CPU
- Memory:512 MB RAM
- Graphics:OpenGL 3.0+ compatible video card
- Hard Drive:2.5GB HD space
- Sound:Sound card
Linux
- Processor:1 GHz CPU
- Memory:512 MB RAM
- Graphics:OpenGL 3.0+ compatible video card
- Hard Drive:2.5GB HD space
- Sound:Sound card
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
KR0 is the forerunner and the capstone of the direction of indie in the 2010s. To me, it’s the definitive game of the decade. The game is a thinker, it’s dense and doesn’t always go down easy. But every moment of frustration and confusion I felt momentarily only served to reinforce the beautiful, disquieting atmosphere and the haunting narrative. KR0 is best experienced with a lot of time and thought in between each act. Some people have accused the game of being dissatisfying and aimless, but I suspect they approached it with the wrong mindset. The game is a work of art, it compels you to stand and study it until your eyes water and your legs hurt. In drifting passively through a gallery with impatient, wandering eyes you will miss the “good part”. Below the stunning scene composition, music, and attention to detail, the truly “good part” of KR0 is the indescribable feeling it pulls out of your heart, one you didn’t know was even there. Disquieting is one (incomplete) way to put it. Its illusory “aimlessness” is the shadow cast by the fact that every single little thing is connected to everything else, in its own way. The game is electric. Like radio and TV static, an infinite web of people, relationships, insecurities, histories, economies, appears as grey noise from afar. KR0 makes the player to listen to this noise, to hear voices in the static, to see ghosts on television, to meet its characters as wavelike perturbations in the electromagnetic field. KR0 is for those willing to read and to linger.
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To live is to journey through constant loss. What we once held dear dissolves, leaving only echoes behind. Yet it is these echoes that guide our steps along Route Zero. 살아간다는 것은, 계속해서 무언가를 내려놓는 것. 그렇게 잃어가면서도, 다시 또 한 걸음 내딛는 것.
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Kentucky Route Zero (KRZ) is an unusual game that is extremely difficult to review. Due to my limited literary literacy, I shall confine myself to commenting only on its form; for its content, one may consult [url=https://www.critical-distance.com/2019/09/26/kentucky-route-zero/] Critical Distance's compilation of analysis pieces or [url=https://consolidatedpower.co/~donald/zero/Articles] this collection of articles and interviews . The form, however, is no less important for this title; many players get into KRZ without a concrete idea of what the gameplay is like, which accounts for a large portion of the negative reviews. So, allow me elaborate on this subject to guide future players. Although often referred to as a point & click, KRZ is actually a text adventure and a visual novel (or rather, a visual theatre play) in the purest form: there is no puzzle-solving, no resource management, no combat or levelling up, just a slowly paced and linear narrative told through a large amount of text enriched by exquisite art, incredible mise-en-scène, and several musical performances with indelible impression. The whole game takes 15-20h to finish; it consists of 5 acts of mixed length (and released years apart) and 5 short interludes. 10% of the time, you will be controlling one of the characters and guiding them towards a fixed destination; occasionally, free roaming allows you to explore optional locations/characters/interaction/dialogues. The rest of the time, you will be reading text, the meat and potatoes of KRZ, and picking continuously among dialogue options. However, although choices abound, there is no branching narrative; the main plot is predetermined. Barring one or two, your choices have almost no bearing on what will transpire in the following scenes or acts. Different dialogue choices mainly reveal a different background story or state of mind of the characters and give a personal touch to your playthrough. (Occasionally, future dialogues may refer back to your choice or depend on whether a certain line has been picked.) To put it another way, citing [url=https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/kentucky-route-zero-act-v-review] Rock Paper Shotgun , KRZ is far more about choice of attitude/behaviour than choice of action. An analogy between KRZ and a theatre play can also be drawn: a player is at the same time a spectator and an actor in this play. For a detailed analysis of this mechanic, see [url=https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/kentucky-route-zero-dialogue-analysis] this piece from RPS . For a title that relies this much on its text, the quality of writing is primordial. So, is the writing of KRZ as good as the media claims it to be? To find out, you will have to judge it yourself or to refer to the two collections I link to at the beginning of this review; I am in no position to say anything more than the fact that I fairly appreciate the writing and its numerous imageries, despite not being capable of recognising the various references in it. Reassuringly, a lack of literary or theatrical knowledge, such as mine, will not impede a sufficient understanding of this literature and the enjoyment ensued. By now, we would probably agree that KRZ is not for everyone: so much text, yet so little interactability and so few consequences; not to mention its relatively obscure genre (magical realism) and lack of clear closure at the end. Whether the highly acclaimed KRZ can be reckoned as a great video game remains debatable and depends inevitably on what we qualify as video games and their greatness. Nevertheless, I am tempted to consider it to be a great piece of interactive art. Alas, as every piece of art, KRZ cannot please everyone to the same degree, nor does everything in it make an unequivocal sense or has a definite answer (not that it should). To conclude: for some games, the journey carries more weight than the destination; KRZ is one of them. If you are undaunted by KRZ's form as specified above, and if you are open to artistic/literary content, you are highly encouraged to embark on this journey. This eerie, disorientating, mysterious, surrealistic, and dream-like adventure. Still on the fence? Check out [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Yw_DqHnp9Y] this concise yet comprehensive (spoiler free) video from RPS . PS: you are ever anxious about the missing writing behind the dialogue options you do not choose, check out [url=https://consolidatedpower.co/~eli/] Kentucky Route Zero Fulltext , the full text of the game with all narrative hypertext structures preserved.
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I was sat up at 2 in the morning in the dormatory common room playing this game, feeling as if i was dreaming with my eyes open. I can't say I "understand" the game, but man i was FEEEEEELING it. It isn't perfect, but I love it and think about it really often still. 9/10!
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If you're reading and wondering what this game is about, I can only advise you: Don't sweat it. Don't overdo it, don't read too deeply into it, don't worry about the right order or missing anything. Play it through blind and then ponder your experience. Pour some bourbon, if you drink, light one up, if you smoke, stare at the grass, if you have time. Yeah, it's that kind of game. I hope you enjoy. I most certainly did.
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Last Updates
| Steam data | 18 November 2024 22:22 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 20 January 2025 12:52 |
| Steam price | 23 January 2025 04:44 |
| Steam reviews | 22 January 2025 22:01 |
Online players
7
Developer
Cardboard Computer
Publisher
Cardboard Computer
Release
22 Feb 2013
Platforms