Road 96 | Part 1
0This is a no commentary, full playthrough of the game. The video contains Part 1 of the story. Recorded on PS5.
Road 96 is a 2021 adventure video game developed and published by French studio DigixArt as part of the OMEN Presents programme in collaboration with HP, with additional publishing support by Plug In Digital.
The game follows several teenage hitchhikers as they attempt to flee from the nation of Petria. Featuring a tyrannical dictatorship in Petria, the game lets the player choose either to influence the election or to focus on crossing the border. The player character meets seven non-player characters across each playthrough, with procedurally generated interactions.
The game was developed by French development studio DigixArt, a small development team with about 15 employees. The game was directed by Yoan Fanise, the creator behind Valiant Hearts: The Great War. According to the developer, the story of the game was inspired by the works of Quentin Tarantino, the Coen Brothers, and Bong Joon-ho. It was inspired by different works of fiction, from The Goonies and Porco Rosso. A test given to the player allowing them to flee to work offshore was based on real-world North Korean exams. The game featured procedural generation extensively. According to the team, the game had "148,268 story permutations".
Road 96 was officially announced at The Game Awards 2020. The game was released for the Nintendo Switch and Microsoft Windows on 16 August 2021. An advertisement for the game was removed by Facebook, due to it being politically motivated. It was released to the Xbox One and the Xbox Series X and S on 14 April 2022. It was also released to the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on the same day.