Like Huck and Jim, the Route Zero protagonists follow the endless current toward an unanticipated destination: self-discovery
There’s no hard line between player character or NPC party; at any moment you might be asked to change roles in a scene
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And then came wonderful, surprising moments where I suddenly lost control of a character and they stepped out (quite literally) on their own, autonomously making decisions that, whether coincidentally or by design, usually lined up with a behavior I would have chosen for them. These moments are few and far between, but when they happened they always made sense and added an air of comedic shock and genuine tragedy to the story. I happily discovered the sparks of independence made Conway and the other characters feel more like people and less like avatars and instruments of my will. Even when I disagreed with their choices, I respected them.Act 4 is a short affair, easily completed in a couple of hours, but there’s a surprising amount of variety in the storytelling method during that time. Route Zero is mostly a game about people talking, and Act 4 keeps finding ways to reframe that mechanic. One creative party encounter was experienced entirely as a series of security camera video tapes viewed by people I’d never met, long after my party had passed by. Another was played out in a haunting, beautifully written river-raft tour through a subterranean wildlife preserve, and a third through the playful and thoughtful journeys of a wandering child capturing sounds on a handheld tape recorder. There’s plenty of standard walk and talk, but Act 4 keeps finding ways to change up the talking and keep things from feeling stale.
Act 4 keeps finding ways to change up the talking and keep things from feeling stale
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All these scenarios and portrayed in a lovely, minimalist graphical style that makes tremendous use of carefully chosen muted colors and shadowing to create a sense of surreality. The camera work is especially well implemented, with constant subtle zooming and panning that brings a sense of life and motion that’s unusual in adventure games. The simulated flatness of the art is so well executed it lulls me into forgetting the characters are moving through a 3D space, and more than once this is startlingly exploited as the perspective twists or zooms to reveal the layered reality of the setting.Thematically, the transition comes at a perfect point in the broader Kentucky Route Zero story, as our heroes begin the chapter in a meandering, listless wandering, and through their encounters along the river, their way toward surrendering to who they are, or changing to become who they want to be. As one character observes: “All people need is enough to pretend they’re home, and we can make it anywhere.”
Verdict
Route Zero: Act 4 constantly alternates between serene and unsettling, with the occasional dash of humor thrown in. The comic visual and dialogue nods help immensely, keeping the dense, introspective writing from simply becoming too much navel gazing. And Route Zero certainly seems to understand this about itself, poking cleverly at its own art-film aesthetic from within while still unapologetically engaging topics like spiritual exhaustion, death, orphanage, and existential angst. The balance works.
