Average Playtime: 2 hours

Kentucky Route Zero

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About

At twilight in Kentucky, as bird songs give way to the choir of frogs and insects, familiar roads become strange, and it's easy to get lost. Those who are already lost may find their way to a secret highway winding through underground caves. The people who live and work along this highway are themselves a little strange at first, but soon seem familiar: the aging driver making the last delivery for a doomed antique shop; the young woman who fixes obsolete TVs surrounded by ghosts; the child and his giant eagle companion; the robot musicians; the invisible power company lurking everywhere, and the threadbare communities who struggle against its grip.

KENTUCKY ROUTE ZERO is a magical realist adventure game in five acts, featuring a haunting electronic score, and a suite of hymns and bluegrass standards recorded by The Bedquilt Ramblers. Rendered in a striking visual style that draws as much from theater, film, and experimental electronic art as it does from the history of videogames, this is a story of unpayable debts, abandoned futures, and the human drive to find community.

Originally published episodically over a span of years, the game now includes all five acts along with the "interludes," which were originally published separately. It has also been painstakingly localized for French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Spanish (both European Spanish and Latin American).

Metascore
81
Release date
Developer
Netflix
,
Cardboard Computer
Publisher
Annapurna Interactive, Netflix, Cardboard Computer
Age rating
13+ Teen
Website
http://kentuckyroutezero.com

System requirements for iOS

iPhone 5s, iPad Air, iPad Air Cellular, iPad Mini Retina, iPad Mini Retina Cellular, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air 2, iPad Air 2 Cellular, iPad Mini 3, iPad Mini 3 Cellular, iPod Touch Sixth Gen, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPad Mini 4, iPad Mini 4 Cellular, iPad Pro, iPad Pro Cellular, iPad Pro 9.7, iPad Pro 9.7 Cellular, iPhone SE, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPad 6 1 1, iPad 6 1 2, iPad 7 1, iPad 7 2, iPad 7 3, iPad 7 4, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X, iPad 7 5, iPad 7 6, iPhone X S, iPhone X S Max, iPhone X R, iPad 8 1 2, iPad 8 3 4, iPad 8 5 6, iPad 8 7 8, iPad Mini 5, iPad Mini 5 Cellular, iPad Air 3, iPad Air 3 Cellular, iPod Touch Seventh Gen, iPhone 1 1, iPhone 1 1 Pro, iPad Seventh Gen, iPad Seventh Gen Cellular, iPhone 1 1 Pro Max, iPhone SE Second Gen, iPad Pro Second Gen, iPad Pro Second Gen Cellular, iPad Pro Fourth Gen, iPad Pro Fourth Gen Cellular, iPhone 1 2 Mini, iPhone 1 2, iPhone 1 2 Pro, iPhone 1 2 Pro Max, iPad Air 4, iPad Air 4 Cellular, iPad Eighth Gen, iPad Eighth Gen Cellular, iPad Pro Third Gen, iPad Pro Third Gen Cellular, iPad Pro Fifth Gen, iPad Pro Fifth Gen Cellular, iPhone 1 3 Pro, iPhone 1 3 Pro Max, iPhone 1 3 Mini, iPhone 1 3, iPad Mini Sixth Gen, iPad Mini Sixth Gen Cellular, iPad Ninth Gen, iPad Ninth Gen Cellular, iPhone SE Third Gen, iPad Air Fifth Gen, iPad Air Fifth Gen Cellular, iPhone 1 4, iPhone 1 4 Plus, iPhone 1 4 Pro, iPhone 1 4 Pro Max, iPad Tenth Gen, iPad Tenth Gen Cellular, iPad Pro 1 1 Fourth Gen, iPad Pro 1 1 Fourth Gen Cellular, iPad Pro Sixth Gen, iPad Pro Sixth Gen Cellular

System requirements for Nintendo Switch

System requirements for PlayStation 4

System requirements for PC

Minimum:
  • OS:Windows 7
  • Processor:1 GHz
  • Memory:512 MB RAM
  • Graphics:Directx 9.0c compatible video card
  • DirectX®:9.0c
  • Hard Drive:250 MB HD space
  • Sound:Sound card
Recommended:
  • OS:Windows 7
  • Processor:1 GHz
  • Memory:1 GB RAM
  • Graphics:Directx 9.0c compatible video card
  • DirectX®:9.0c
  • Hard Drive:250 MB HD space
  • Sound:Sound card

System requirements for macOS

Minimum:
  • OS:OSX 10.5 Leopard
  • Processor:1 GHz CPU
  • Memory:512 MB RAM
  • Graphics:OpenGL 3.0+ compatible video card
  • Hard Drive:250 MB HD space
  • Sound:Sound card

System requirements for Linux

Minimum:
  • Processor:1 GHz CPU
  • Memory:512 MB RAM
  • Graphics:OpenGL 3.0+ compatible video card
  • Hard Drive:250 MB HD space
  • Sound:Sound card
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Last Modified: Oct 27, 2024

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Kentucky Route Zero Trailer
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Kentucky Route Zero reviews and comments

i finally gave up on playing Kentucky Route Zero... after so many years of starting it and dropping it over and over again

everyone says that if you like Disco Elysium this one is for you, but I didn't get that! sure the world is interesting and has a biiiit of the Disco hopelessness, but other than that i don't really see it. 

this was my "before-sleep-game" for a lot of months and it really chilled me out before bed, but i guess it chilled me out too much ? i really wish i could get more into it, but it was a bit too passive for me (and i am not one to usually say that!). still, i give it a "Reccomended" because it has a distinct vibe and i'm happy i tried it. 
I’d heard good things about this game and it was leaving gamepass so I started it. I realized I didn’t feel like playing a point and click story game after about 30 mins, but I wanted to see what the fuss was all about so I read the Wikipedia page and another article talking about the game. I’m happy I didn’t spend the time playing it. It seems artsy and filled with profound themes but it would have been a slog to play and I don’t think the story sounded that great. 
We saved what we could.
Ron dug up the tomb
then we buried the horses.
Exceptional artwork 
«Blew my mind»
«Liked before it became a hit»
A wonderful interactive adventure that remains marinated in the mind like a good book. The authors, through a heap of obvious and not very references, make it clear that they are familiar with the "magic realism", and literally every game segment follows it correctly. KR0 is no longer about a global plot, but about small stories that gradually build up layers into a single stream of sensations. And despite the fact that the authors are unlikely to try to catch up with the mastodons of the genre, small experiments with interactivity clearly give them a big advantage.

Additional experience may, unfortunately, be inaccessible: either from low awareness (it is impossible to guess to open YouTube simultaneously with one of the interludes), or because of past ARG interactions, one way or another conducted as the acts were released.

However, it’s very difficult to advise this piece of work. After all, I myself sometimes had the feeling that I was experiencing Satantago again. And the lack of voice in the game, the developers clearly propose to fill in the players themselves.
«Blew my mind»
«Sit back and relax»
Awesome animation and interesting visual style, but man what a slog. The writing was a surrealist nightmare that is just an exercise in excess. 
«Oh God i managed it»
I enjoyed moments, I've been puzzled by others. In moments you begin to see meaning it rings profound. In moments where the narrative looses me it also moves me along with interesting visuals to make me catch up. It feels lost, in a right way. Small criticism include that the intendet way to play is sometimes too difficult too read, making it hard to stay focused in some scenes. Fair warning: If you dont like reading in video games, skip Kentucky Route Zero. It is an interactive novel with 3d environments more than a game.  Well I'll keep on traveling, meet you along the way.
Playing Kentucky Route Zero makes me feel like I'm back in high school reading a book no human actually wants to read and I'm expected to write an essay afterwards on the actual meaning. In this case I'm not so sure there is a deeper meaning. Kentucky Route Zero stays intriguing after the first chapter, falls off a bit during the second and third chapters then quickly loses any semblance of a coherent story. If I hadn't known it was such a short game I would have abandoned it after the first couple of hours. As it was, I struggled to have the desire to finish it.

Date Completed: 2020-02-27
Playtime: 7h (feel asleep while playing a few times)
Enjoyment: 1/10
Recommendation: Please, no, don't.
Translated by
Microsoft from French
When I see all the positive evaluation that at this game, I feel like I was the only one to have been drunk and lost in less than 2 hours of play... A totally creepy atmosphere that gives the impression of having a fart ' in the helmet. The realization does not lack originality but it is clearly too much for me. Yet I made twisted games.
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