Loss is inevitable, but that realization doesn’t make it any less difficult. Grief is almost guaranteed to touch your life – my life. And that has certainly already happened. That certainty—that we will all be touched by death—is part of the reason so much art is devoted to interrogating those feelings. Video games have been one medium for so long that, despite all of its death, dying, and multiple lives, the emotion of grief hadn’t fully worked out yet. There was little reason for it: if you die in a video game, you always come back to life. The danger of death comes down to nothing more than a few hearts on a screen, a number. It is often encouraged. The more kills you get, the better. Death there is not something to mourn, but a celebration. But this is not a universal truth in all games. More and more video games explore what it means to lose – no longer just a level, but the more tangible, life-changing loss. They’re games like Ghostsmana ‘fun management game about dying’, which is about life after death; What remains of Edith Finch, about the stories that are left behind; or The story of a funeral director, which brings you into contact with death. You’ll also encounter sadness in games that aren’t explicitly about loss; like I said, it’s inevitable.
Surgent Studios’ Stories of Kenzera: Zau is the latest game about coping with grief; in fact, that’s the core of the game. Directed by House of the Dragon actor Abubakar Salim, Surgent Studios’ development team, has not shied away from the subject. When he announced the game during The Game Awards in 2023, Salim said Stories of Kenzera: Zau was a way for him to process his grief in a way that felt familiar to him, as someone who grew up playing and loving video games. The game is a tribute to his father, who died of cancer in 2013.
Set in a colorful, afrofuturistic world, Stories of Kenzera: Zau begins with a boy mourning the recent death of his father. His father had been ill for a long time; his death was expected, but no less devastating. The boy isn’t ready to say goodbye yet, so instead he picks up a book his father was writing. In this book you will find most of the Stories of Kenzera: Zau is set in a world that mirrors the boy’s own world. A young shaman named Zau mourns the death of his father and makes a deal with Kalunga, the god of death, to bring his father back. Zau must venture deep into Kenzera, overrun by lost spirits, to confront three powerful spirits to fulfill Kalunga’s request.
Image: Surgent Studios/Electronic Arts
Stories of Kenzera: Zau is a Metroidvania-style game that uses the gameplay to portray Zau’s story and grief. Zau enters Kenzera, overcome with grief, and singularly focused on bringing back his Baba. He can withstand Kalunga’s help even as he struggles without it. His grief is overwhelming and complicated; he processes his feelings, sometimes out loud, as he races through different, but interconnected, lands in search of the ghosts.
To confront the evil spirits, Zau uses the powers of two of his father’s masks: one representing the sun, the other the moon. Early on, the blue moon mask gives Zau a ranged attack, while the yellow sun mask is a melee attack to combat enemies up close. Like any Metroidvania, Stories of Kenzera: Zau upgrades these skills as you progress through the platforming action. Eventually, Zau will gain the ability to freeze water or enemies, shoot electric spears, swing from hooked flowers, and break through fortified gates. In addition to platforming, Stories of Kenzera: Zau offers many environmental puzzles – reflections on timing, movement and placement.
The game’s main path is linear and follows the story, but there’s always room for further exploration, as is traditional in a Metroidvania-style game. This is where the genre feels particularly suited to a game about grief; it is not linear, because you often end up on the wrong path, or get lost in cycles and loops. But walking these winding paths is often important in processing grief, even for Zau: dead ends are often spaces for him to think or rest, giving him extra health or uncovering little story pieces. Not to mention the world of Stories of Kenzera: Zau is absolutely gorgeous, despite the abundance of destruction and betrayal. Each of the areas is different: lush greenery in treetop jungles; brown and yellow for crushing deserts; blue and purple for the underground depths. There is emotion and life in every environment, with music that suits the soul – and heightens its danger. It’s a beautiful visual recreation of the Bantu myths and legends at the heart of the game’s storytelling.
With each new skill, Stories of Kenzera: Zau is becoming increasingly difficult. The platforming puzzles build on themselves throughout each of the game’s four chapters, and enemies become more powerful as well. There’s also an upgrade tree to make Zau’s abilities more powerful, as well as unlockable challenge runes that go even further. (The runes are nice to have, but not essential; for example, you charge your skills the more you juggle enemies.) It all gets a bit chaotic, but in the best way. Stories of Kenzera: ZauThe platforming and enemy combat are challenging in a way that feels rewarding and never punishing. The game’s story makes everything feel difficult for a reason, and every victory comes with some sort of new realization for Zau or the people he’s met along the way. These realizations don’t always stay with Zau; he might have an epiphany about someone else’s grief, only to move on to his own grief. Grief is messy, and Stories of Kenzera: Zau doesn’t shy away from that.
Image: Surgent Studios/Electronic Arts
Right towards the end of Stories of Kenzera: Zau, there is a precision and time-based platforming section that is painfully difficult. It requires the use of almost all of Zau’s upgrades and abilities, which means a lot of juggling buttons and timing. (I also encountered a few bugs that froze Zau in a certain skill, meaning he automatically failed when consumed by raging fire — a detail that made the hard level even more painful.) During this section, Zau escapes an erupting volcano after fighting the evil GaGorib. As smoke and lava chase him, Zau must smash through walls, climb walls, dodge obstacles and perform precise and well-timed platforming moves to survive. The sticking point for me was this one wall-breaking thrust, timed precisely after a hooked swing – I got caught by the lava more times than I could count. I never felt completely comfortable with it, and every time I broke through it, it felt like a miracle. The section went on for a while, without a save point, and after about an hour I finally got through it. By then I was frustrated, tired, and had a sore thumb. I was angry with the game and also with myself. I almost stopped playing. But the feeling of Zau breaking that final barrier was such a relief, a relief that felt like a real achievement. A relief that made the struggle worth it. Unbeknownst to me, this level is quite close to the end of the game – one of the last major challenges I would face Stories of Kenzera: Zau. It’s the perfect time for such a challenge, the culmination of so many messy, complicated feelings, for both me and Zau.
I finished the game in tears when Zau’s story ended, because I too experience sadness in my own life – the anticipatory kind, but sadness nonetheless. I’m not ready to accept that yet, and I’m not sure I ever will. But I’m leaving Stories of Kenzera: Zau knowing that enlightenment is possible, no matter how far away it is.
Stories of Kenzera: Zau will be released on April 23 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows PC and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on PS5 using a pre-release download code from Electronic Arts. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions on products purchased through affiliate links. You can find Additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy can be found here.