Preview
Road 96: Mile 0, a prequel best enjoyed on a Steam Deck
The road trip, which generates a story procedurally, presents a previous story with gameplay changes.
Road 96: Mile 0 will be released digitally on April 4 next year on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC and Switch. Thanks to DigixArt and Ravenscourt, we had the opportunity to play a short preview to see what awaits us in this new installment, which will not be procedural like the first one and, according to the studio, will last less time.
A new place
This prequel will take place in White Sands, a luxury community within the mythical Petria, before the events we experienced in Road 96. Here we will play with Zoe and Kaito, two teenagers of very different origins and beliefs, but we already knew the redhead from the first installment as a secondary character.
Gameplay changes
Unlike the 2021 title, there will be parts where we will understand the motives in the minds of the protagonists, through crazy musical sequences that will make us feel like we are in an MTV video of the late 80s. In these rhythmic walks, we will unravel the story of both characters.
Another interesting aspect is that in addition to answering questions, we will have mini-games that can go from delivering newspapers to interacting with an arcade that will remind us of the slot machines of the eighties.
Some of the changes that we will see are things that the studio had applied in titles like Lost In Harmony, from sequences in two dimensions that emulate a platform game, to sections where we go vertically through levels like in any current endless runner for smartphones, but combine narrative elements as they had done in Road 96.
Steam Deck Ready
Although we had no confirmation from the studio as such to run it on Valve's portable platform, we can confirm that the game runs without any problem. It is really attractive to play on it, as this type of title, due to the number of options we have in the story, allows us to explore the options available in the plot to know all its endings.
Similar visuals to Road 96
The graphic section is similar to the previous one, with cel shading style art that is well adapted, especially in the musical sequences, and that is incredibly well adapted in the moments where more serious themes are played.
Now we just have to see what it looks like in the final version, since this preview was only a few levels that took us up to two hours.