PC Critic Reviews

Kentucky Route Zero Act IV is fu*king fantastic.

Kentucky Route Zero is simply a game you can't miss. It's a marvelous piece of art with addictive dialogues and a perfect soundtrack.

In a narrative sense, Act IV is most likely the calm before the storm in Act V, and falls perfectly in line with the five-act structure often used to analyze Shakespeare (the section of falling action). The best adventures are ones where the location — physically and mentally — one begins and where one ends up are shockingly, violently different. Kentucky Route Zero embodies this notion as the characters (and the player) disappear into the night.

As you journey down the Echo, the ancestral darkness of River Lethe, you remember. Kentucky Route Zero has now transcended the video game medium and has become an incredibly strong argument for video games as a pure art form.

Act IV proves the journey is everything, and what people take from and give to each other--even in the most desolate, purgatorial version of America imaginable--still matters. It's heartening thinking about what other players might take away from the stories shared during our motley crew's time sailing Lake Lethe--and what it might spur them to do in the real world.

Route Zero: Act 4 constantly alternates between serene and unsettling, with the occasional dash of humor thrown in.

From the room of VHS tapes, to the security footage, to the bat sanctuary, to the theremin performance, to the camera’s final, extended retreat up the rickety helix of a spiral staircase; Act IV confronts us with scenarios that test and limit our perception. Like Snow’s Wavelength, it gives us just enough to trick us into feeling like we’ve glimpsed something real.

Act IV is a slow, meandering episode that continues Kentucky Route Zero’s streak of quiet, introspective, blue collar beauty.

Despite my sense that this chapter is not quite the equal of those before it, it is entirely unmissable if you have played those, still as beautiful and unpredictable and as forlornly romantic as ever, and this time it shows me at least two places I wish I could go and live in forever. And though some water may be overtly trodden this time, be in no doubt that things are moving towards a conclusion.