Road 96

Road 96 is a single-player, procedurally-generated adventure game played from a first-person perspective. The player controls a series of nameless teenagers who attempt to flee their corrupt home country of Petria by traveling to its border and illegally crossing.

Each journey begins hundreds of miles from the border, with the player aiming to reach a mountain checkpoint near it. Journeys are composed of various segments that take place in different locations. The segments see the player interact with one of the game's eight core non-playable characters and often incorporate strategy video game elements and minigames. The player must manage their energy throughout the game, which can be replenished by buying food or resting.

In 1996, the authoritarian nation of Petria prepares for a presidential election between new candidate Florres, who vaguely promises change to the nation, and Petria's long-standing dictator, Tyrak, whose win would doom the prospects of the country's working class. Ten years earlier, in 1986, a landslide, caused by an explosion on a mountain pass, killed many civilians during a televised event. The government blamed the terrorist group known as the Black Brigades for the fatalities and concluded that their bombing was an attempt to assassinate Petria's president, Tyrak. In reality, the explosion was orchestrated by Tyrak to discredit the Brigades and eliminate civilians he believed were sympathetic to them.

Tyrak controls the security forces to pay off officers to suppress protests against him, and he manipulates state media to portray dissenters as terrorists. Teenagers who oppose his policies are secretly arrested and sent to labor camps known as the "iron pits", prompting many young Petrian citizens to attempt to flee by crossing the northern border.

Road 96 was developed by DigixArt. For the first year of development, anyone on the 15-person team was allowed to suggest characters, events, and story ideas for the game. Fanise said that the idea to frame the story around teenagers trying to escape an oppressive government arose after visiting 11 Bit Studios in Poland, as several developers had stories of the struggles of living through communist rule during the Soviet era. Some of the escape methods depicted in the game were inspired by real-life stories from people who lived behind the Iron Curtain.

Petria's design and political climate was described by Fanise as a mix of corrupt real-world political systems. The design for Petria's border took inspiration from the border between China and Tibet.

According to the review aggregator website Metacritic, Road 96 received "generally favorable reviews". OpenCritic reported that 74% of 92 critics recommended the game.

The gameplay was generally well-received and considered engaging by reviewers. Alessandro Barbosa of GameSpot, Christopher Byrd of The Washington Post, and Jon Bailes of NME liked how the game utilized minigames in its segments, agreeing that it helped keep it engaging. Alice Bell of Rock Paper Shotgun appreciated how the game's structure let the player apply knowledge gained from previous journeys. Eurogamer's Marco Procida and GameSpot's Barbosa also named the game's collectible system as a highlight.