Tales of Kenzera™: ZAU

Wield the dance of the shaman. Reclaim your father’s spirit. Brave the beautiful and treacherous land of Kenzera with the God of Death in Tales of Kenzera™: ZAU, a metroidvania-style adventure crafted by Surgent Studios.

Tales of Kenzera™: ZAU is a metroidvania, adventure and action-adventure game developed by Surgent Studios and published by Electronic Arts.
Released on April 23rd 2024 is available only on Windows in 10 languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Spanish - Latin America, Portuguese - Brazil and Swahili.

It has received 628 reviews of which 521 were positive and 107 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.8 out of 10. 😊

The game is currently priced at 9.99€ on Steam and has a 50% discount.

The Steam community has classified Tales of Kenzera™: ZAU into these genres:

Metroidvania Adventure Action-Adventure Colorful Indie Atmospheric Exploration Fantasy Mythology Side Scroller Platformer Lore-Rich Action Singleplayer Story Rich Politics

Media & Screenshots

Get an in-depth look at Tales of Kenzera™: ZAU through various videos and screenshots.

screenshot_ss_061a528527e35a3714276a50c1e898cb19d17d72.1920x1080.jpg

screenshot_ss_52a8c1319db3ec7fae1fc19d105d33d7542f508c.1920x1080.jpg

screenshot_ss_8fa87a473d9323260724f73bd318271b175e230c.1920x1080.jpg

screenshot_ss_e9edafce52549d7d8fa1595763bfc568a34256da.1920x1080.jpg

screenshot_ss_c38f66ed3fa2d57add033377eef654bde585a865.1920x1080.jpg

screenshot_ss_21237ba71847e29809a3b5732baebddea8b8dfcd.1920x1080.jpg

screenshot_ss_a9c210cdb2e163044b470c79927c42ea98b0b3c5.1920x1080.jpg

screenshot_ss_d20cd3294865d1e81c821fbb0f635398366832a5.1920x1080.jpg

screenshot_ss_185a0c147cad7fcafb759a0ab1de8cf93ebfcac4.1920x1080.jpg

screenshot_ss_fe8166359707ad56c3139216827e74b1101bbe1b.1920x1080.jpg

Requirements

These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.

Windows

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 10
Processor: Intel i7 7700 / AMD Ryzen 2600
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB / AMD RX 580 8GB / Intel Arc A380
DirectX: Version 12
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 30 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
Additional Notes: These specs allow for the game to be played in 1920x1080 at 60 FPS with graphics setting "Lowest"

Reviews

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

Nov. 2024

A great entry into the Metroidvania genre, with a clean map design and snappy movement, rounded off by an emotional story layered with traditional African cultural references and motifs. Overall vibrant and colorful setting adds a lot to that feeling. The combat isn't deep or challenging, but it always feels impactfull and fun. Enemies and areas you fight them in are somewhat limited in scale and design and the severe lack of deep exploration may be something more experienced players should take into account. I would recommend this to someone looking for a "lighter" metroidvania experience

May 2024

It's fun, and the setting and characters are different from what I've encountered before. Full disclosure, I am a fan of African literature (Chinua Achebe, Ngugi Thion'go), so this is right up my alley. I'm looking forward to playing more like this.

May 2024

A beautiful, fluid game with a heartfelt story First thing that comes to my mind after finishing the game is how fluid and dancelike it is. You don't just run, jump, and fight through the levels, it's rather a ballet of motions, swift and elegant, accompanied by a lot of very pretty particle effects. Your double jump turns you into a swirling flame or a cloud of sparkling ice, depending on which of your Shaman masks you are currently wearing. You have two masks right from the start, each providing a different fighting style and special abilities to unlock via experience points. You can – and often are required to – change them anytime with the press of a button and sooner than you know it, this will become second nature to you. As with all the abilities you learn during the game which are often clever enhancements of already established moves, so that you do not have to learn completely new button combinations. While a different genre, a lot about the style, movement and fluidity reminded me of the last two Rayman games – especially the escape sequences. Second thing is the wonderful voice acting. I could listen to the two leads’ voices for hours - their bantering, their thoughtful exchanges about life, death and loss; those deep, beautiful voices with their African intonation. Together with the great soundtrack it lends gravitas to a game which – mechanically – is an accomplished but not particularly unique action platformer with Metroidvania-like abilities and aspects. I say Metroidvania-like because to me the essential thing about a Metroidvania is a large, complex map with lots of secrets and paths you can only unlock with new abilities, which you must search and backtrack to. Completing the map is a huge part of the appeal. ZAU in comparison is a rather linear game, which is the right choice, because while moving through the game you also move through the story, and this needs a certain pace. It is not primarily a game about finding secrets – though there are some along the way – it even gives you the complete map of a level as soon as you enter it, making it rather easy to spot where the little detours are to find extras (“trinkets” which enhance certain aspects, challenges to enhance your core stats). It’s also not a very difficult, or at least not a frustrating game, especially when it comes to the fights. While there are plenty of them, they are always built to make use of your abilities (change masks to destroy the shield of a specific enemy type), and they also have linear progression. Known enemy types get accompanied by new ones, a new enemy channels/enhances the abilities of established ones etc.; the fights are small puzzles, about what to attack/destroy first. You regain healing points by hitting the enemy and once you are down with the mechanics you hardly ever lose a fight because you can constantly heal yourself. You should however track down and complete the challenges to gain more health and available healing points for the later levels. Also, the enemies don’t respawn. More challenging are the late game platforming sequences; while the controls are spot on, responsive and precise – I don’t understand the people saying otherwise – the hitboxes of spikes and other obstacles killing you instantly are sometimes a bit too large (or not clearly visible) and the large amount of particle effects in combination with your character’s own transformations while double jumping or dashing make you lose track of where your character actually is – which often results in unnecessary deaths. This is the only gripe I have with the game. Pretty visuals are great, but control should always come first in a platformer. Which leads me to a comparison with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown since the art style is quite similar. In Prince of Persia, you never lose track of your character, it always stays perfectly visible which is a huge plus in the (much more) challenging platforming sections. But the general look of PoP is bland in comparison to ZAU which has far more diverse, imaginative, colorful, and beautifully animated background art. It goes without saying that PoP is the much larger, more complex and in the end “better” game, but it left me a little cold. I never got into the story, and this is where ZAU just takes you along easily – with some good humor and heartfelt emotions which never seem forced or overdone. It took me 14 hours to get to 100% completion and I had a wonderful time with it: 8/10

April 2024

Update after finishing the game: - Phenomenal voice acting and soundtrack/score (play with headphones) - Really incredible story for a platformer/metroidvania - The graphics and environments are stunning, so great seeing a different setting/world being explored - Found the gameplay and combat to be fun although mostly fairly easy through the main game. Boss fights do ramp this up. The challenge areas can be incredibly difficult though if you are looking for a real fight and some of the trials to get trinkets are insanely tricky in terms of platforming. - The map could use some work. Would really prefer if the "fog of war" only lifted for areas you've explored in any given region rather than the whole section. - Controls on the glide ability could be tighter Overall really great little game, and considering it's the studios first title it's at an incredibly high bar in terms of quality and polish. Also can't really go wrong at this price for a 10ish hour experience. Worth it for the story alone. Curious to see what comes next for the world of Kenzera.

April 2024

If you are like me, and you recently played Prince of Persia The Lost Crown, then Tales of Kenzara Zau might feel pretty good in comparison, but not excellent. But we can't let the "pretty good" be the enemy of "excellent", and considering the affordable price, wonderful art direction, touching story and unique setting, I think this is definitely a worthwhile experience.

Similar games

View all

Greak: Memories of Azur

Similarity 88%

Price -86% 2.86€

Rating 7.5

Release 17 Aug 2021

View

9 Years of Shadows

Similarity 84%

Price -84% 3.03€

Rating 7.4

Release 27 Mar 2023

View

Hob

Similarity 83%

Price -83% 3.45€

Rating 8.6

Release 26 Sep 2017

View

Islets

Similarity 81%

Price -85% 2.93€

Rating 9.1

Release 24 Aug 2022

View

Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap

Similarity 80%

Price -70% 5.99€

Rating 8.2

Release 08 Jun 2017

View

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom

Similarity 80%

Price -75% 7.24€

Rating 8.6

Release 25 Jul 2019

View

Rabi-Ribi

Similarity 80%

Price -70% 5.24€

Rating 9.3

Release 28 Jan 2016

View

Tchia

Similarity 79%

Price -58% 12.45€

Rating 8.3

Release 21 Mar 2024

View

Crypt Custodian

Similarity 78%

Price -20% 15.60€

Rating 9.3

Release 27 Aug 2024

View

Olija

Similarity 76%

Price -80% 2.95€

Rating 8.6

Release 28 Jan 2021

View

Ato

Similarity 76%

Price -42% 7.24€

Rating 8.9

Release 08 May 2020

View

Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas

Similarity 76%

Price -50% 7.49€

Rating 7.7

Release 17 Mar 2015

View

More games like Tales of Kenzera™: ZAU

Data sources

The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.

Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.

Last Updates

Steam data	23 November 2024 08:54
SteamSpy data	21 December 2024 04:12
Steam price	23 December 2024 12:51
Steam reviews	23 December 2024 18:08

-50% 19.99€ 9.99€

7.8

521

107

Online players

Developer

Surgent Studios

Publisher

Electronic Arts

Release 23 Apr 2024

Platforms