Screenshots & trailers
Review sentiment over time
Weekly positive-review rate (green) and review volume (bars). Dashed lines mark significant patches; the amber line is the start of the current scoring window. Hover the dots to see what drove a dip or a jump.
How this score was computed
The VGC Score is a weighted blend on a press-comparable 0-100 quality scale. Steam approval rates are first calibrated (95% positive on Steam ≈ 89.5 quality, since Steam approval skews high). Press and tracked creator reviews each count ~2x a player review and share one cap against player evidence (creator buy/skip calls pool into an approval rate, calibrated like Steam approval); all-time sentiment is capped and halved (it's context, not verdict); reviews of the current build carry the most weight when a fresh patch anchors the window; and a 'typical game' prior keeps small samples from pegging the scale. Because press reviews and Metacritic user aggregates describe the launch build, their weight decays as the game ages (3-year half-life after a 1-year grace). That's how a game that launched rough can outgrow its old reception once updates win players over. Reviews under 2h playtime (the refund window), non-Steam activations, and free copies are downweighted.
| Component | Positive | Quality (0-100) | Weight (pseudo-reviews) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Press reviews (OpenCritic) | – | 89 | 3 |
| All-time Steam reviews | 80% | 74 | 1000 |
| Metacritic user ratings | – | 70 | 2 |
| Post-patch Steam reviews (trust-weighted) | 71% | 68 | 5 |
| Calibration prior (typical game) | – | 72 | 50 |
Scoring window: last 30 days (no significant patch detected) · 14 reviews sampled · 13 total reviews in window · weighted 7.4 up / 3 down · computed 2h ago · full methodology →
Press & Creators reviews (19)
Individual verdicts from outlets we track: scored reviews first, most trusted outlets first among them. The small badge is each outlet's trust score: how well its scoring history aligns with players.
- 85
“But we will remind others of them through our memorials, whether built, written, or lived.”
read full review ↗ - 90
“The game is one of the deepest and most different games of recent years by the industry, which showcases the true power of the eighth art, both in terms of storytelling and interaction.”
read full review ↗ - 90
“Kentucky Route Zero returns with an episode that meanders, but enraptures all the same.”
read full review ↗ - 87
“A compelling story about rural America that is both surreal and thoughtful, if a little disorienting.”
read full review ↗ - 92
“Kentucky Route Zero is an experience unlike any other. “There’s dignity in being forgotten” says one character at one point. Yet, when it comes to Kentucky Route Zero, being forgotten would be a loss. The quantity of beauty, its ability to make the player feel so very intimate, yet strangely distant from what’s being shown, alongside all the feelings it evokes make it very, very unique.”
read full review ↗ - 85
“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.”
read full review ↗ - 93
“Come on, just play it already (you probably already have it on Steam!).”
read full review ↗ - 100
“A magical adventure almost a decade in the making, Kentucky Route Zero is every bit as good as you've heard, and maybe more.”
read full review ↗ - 100
“This game is one of the best story-focused titles I’ve played in a long time, and I feel better for it.”
read full review ↗ - 81
“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.”
read full review ↗ - 50
“Exceptional dialogue served even in most exquisite forms (mini-games, different perspective, mixed chronology) are still not enough for the story to be compatible with this medium or to be worth telling altogether. The result is slow and difficult to ingest and sometimes even unpleasant in its archaic mechanics. [03/2020, p.54]”
- 100
“Melancholic, all too real, but in the end, hopeful, Kentucky Route Zero is a reflection of what it's like to survive as an everyday American. It's an adventure concerned not just with our country's endemic issues, but with the people at the center and their undying perseverance in the face of economic cruelty. As an adventure game, it is perhaps one of the finest games ever written, ebbing and flowing between the perspectives of not just other characters, but the lens we see it through. All considered as the sum of its many, equally magnificent parts, Kentucky Route Zero is a game I won't forget for a long, long time.”
read full review ↗
Paste Magazine
Zoomg
GameSpot
PC Gamer
NoobFeed
IGN
RPG Fan
PCWorld
Destructoid
Kill Screen
CD-Action
USgamer…and 7 more tracked reviews.
Patch history
- Patch Unity vulnerabilityOct 11, 2025
- Mysterious fixes for mysterious bugsAug 28, 2024
- Fixes for Windows 7 and 8Aug 28, 2023
- Patch for Chinese text issues on WindowsAug 24, 2023
- Postmodern UpdateAug 17, 2023significant · resets scoring window