Road 96 is a procedural road trip game about escaping a country in turmoil

One pleasant surprise from The Game Awards was the announcement of Road 96, a procedurally generated road trip adventure about fleeing from a tyrannical regime. Inspired by renowned filmmakers like the Coen Brothers, Tarantino, and Bong Joon-Ho, Road 96 is made by the team behind Valiant Hearts and Memories Retold—two great narrative games with a lot of heart.

That makes me extremely hopeful that Road 96 will also be memorable trip. Over on the Steam page, Road 96 says that "you’ll meet incredible characters, and discover their intertwined stories and secrets in an ever-evolving adventure."

"But every mile opens up a choice to make. Your decisions will change your adventure, change the people you meet, maybe even change the world."

That certainly sounds lofty, but I'd love to see how a narrative game mixes with procedural generation. You can see the trailer above to get some idea of how the game actually plays, which looks to involve a mix of driving, hitch-hiking, and maybe even a little armed robbery? Either way, it looks neat.

You can wishlist Road 96 on Steam.

Steven Messner

With over 7 years of experience with in-depth feature reporting, Steven's mission is to chronicle the fascinating ways that games intersect our lives. Whether it's colossal in-game wars in an MMO, or long-haul truckers who turn to games to protect them from the loneliness of the open road, Steven tries to unearth PC gaming's greatest untold stories. His love of PC gaming started extremely early. Without money to spend, he spent an entire day watching the progress bar on a 25mb download of the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 demo that he then played for at least a hundred hours. It was a good demo.

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