Keep Driving

I’m a little unsure whether I am the intended audience for Keep Driving. This highly atmospheric resource management game / RPG / driving game is all about the vibes of going on a grand road trip on the American highways. Now, I have never been to the USA, nor do I own a car or even a driver’s license. I have no intentions of getting either, because, quite frankly, driving scares me. I have too little faith in other drivers to be getting stuck in with them on my country’s highways, let alone those in the U.S. And yet. I don’t know if it’s because of all the ways pop culture has fed me this dream about going out on the road, traversing that huge country with not a care in the world. Maybe it’s just a consequence of having to depend on the Belgian public transport system (which is, to be fair, a bit crap). No matter where it comes from, there is this romantic idea of going out on a road trip that seems incredibly appealing to me. And Y/CJ/Y Games have absolutely nailed that vision of what it would be like.

Apparently, this Swedish duo has based the game on their own experiences, and maybe that’s why the procedurally generated world in this game feels so lived in. You play as a teen who has just bought their very first car and sets out for an entire summer on the road. The game is set between the start of June and the end of August, and it actively encourages you to take your time with it. Yes, there are places to go and events to take part in, but don’t rush there. You’re young; you have time.

I really like that the developers set this game at the turn of the millennium; as to me, it felt like life was a bit slower back then. We seem stuck in this madstrom that’s infinitely speeding up, and it feels so nice to be able to unwind a little here. Freedom is the key word here, with so many choices available to you that it might become overwhelming. And yet, as someone who avoids open world games just for that reason, I never felt that choice paralysis in Keep Driving. I just try to put myself in the shoes of a younger person on the road for that very first time.

In my playthrough, I picked up this young girl on the side of the road. She was supposed to make it to her father’s house, but stepped off the bus at the wrong stop and has become a little lost. So I set out to get her home. There were more hitchhikers we could’ve picked up along the way, but I was travelling with a child, so I wouldn’t endanger her like that. After finally finding the right hometown, I set off to continue my adventure, with a huge music festival in my future, with still a ways to go on my journey.

The mechanics of this life on the road are super interesting. Obviously, you need to keep an eye on your own energy levels and how much fuel you have left in your tank, but there’s so much more to discover here. You can customise and upgrade your car, you can buy—or even shoplift—grocery of all kinds, you can choose to get drunk or high, you can work odd jobs to get some cash, and while you’re driving, you’ll run into these events that require a kind of turn-based combat to overcome. These can range from being stuck behind a cyclist to potholes in the road and whatnot. Yes, there are a lot of systems in place here. But none of them ever get too much. There’s a simplicity to all of them, and what impressed me a lot is how these systems fed into each other. For example, each hitchhiker you pick up brings their own personality to the trip but also brings useful skills to use in these turn-based moments. Choosing how good your relationship with your parents is at the start of the game can greatly affect how quickly the game ends for you. Using cigarettes during combat causes you to develop an addiction. There are so many interesting things going on, creating this vibrant world that feels truly alive. Life in the other towns and cities doesn’t stop just because you are not there.

The only thing that has kept this game from being perfect for me is the exploration parts. Every once in a while, you’ll come across areas that you can explore on foot. You switch to a first-person view for this and have to click the arrow for the direction you wish to move in. These areas are basically little mazes, in which you can collect items, but you only really get them if you make it back to the starting point. These are the only areas of the game that feel a little undercooked, and I quickly decided not to investigate these too much, as I was having so much fun with the rest of the game.

Oh, but I almost left out the best part! The soundtrack! Good lord, what a collection of brilliant indie bands this is. They’re all local bands from Sweden, but they bring this cool vibe to the game that’s just, wow. You get to collect the soundtrack to the game through CDs that you can find and buy along the way, so you even get to choose what music will soundtrack which part of the game. If you’ve ever driven down a highway in the middle of the night with just the perfect track on the radio, you’ll immediately understand what I mean.

The game isn’t super long if you just want to play through it once. But with multiple endings awaiting you and so many different outcomes to all types of different events, it’s worth revisiting this game again and again. Even if it’s just for the vibes.