Z.A.T.O. // I Love the World and Everything In It

USSR, 1986. A girl goes missing in the closed city of Vorkuta-5, yet not a soul seems to be concerned. Uncover the mystery behind her disappearance and transmit your signal to the universe.

Verdict

Verdict coming soon: the jury is still reading

Buy, Wait, and Skip land in the next pass. Nothing on this card can be bought.

Player sentiment

Player sentiment is from Steam (PC) reviews.

All time

98.2%

12,846 reviews

12 months

98%

13,211 reviews

90 days

97.8%

2,678 reviews

30 days

97.6%

821 reviews

Stable-0.1 pts versus the previous 90 days

Review history

Bars are review volume. The line is the positive percentage. Periods under 10 reviews are faded.

What players are saying

Positive

a bittersweet tragedy that, despite everything, contains a resolute affirmation of life, an experience that only the reflective and melancholic slavonic spirit could have produced In other words: itz denpa kinoge :-). I do wish it would have run a little longer, but I still have to figure out whether that feeling is based on a genuine criticism of the story or if it stems from my own selfish desire for the whole experience to have lasted just a little bit longer...
6h 15m played at review · 6 Sept 2026
It's one of the most important games in my life. I beg my mutuals that I know like VNs to play it at the first chance I get. I bought the digital artbook to support Ferry and I'm tempted to gift multiple copies of it just to support her more for making such a masterpiece of writing and art. Asya as a character I feel like has to be observed, I was crying the entire playthrough not because of the subject matter(even if that get's very sad later) but because of how seen the game had made me feel. I've been in her pit, I've been in her thought process, I've had to deal with such hyperactive endless overthinking. The ending is beautiful, please gosh play this game if you can.
8h 44m played at review · 22 Sept 2026
The game has a very melancholy tone I feel like that's clear with the music the setting and a lot of the dialogue at times. But the story was really interesting I was hooked from pretty early on and it really didn't drop off at any point (that could be because its pretty short) but I never felt bored through the story, that being said I feel like it set something up and couldn't fully deliver because of that (but that's only one thing. I was invested the whole way through and I really liked the characters they all felt so full of personality and their artwork/ sprites conveyed that even more. To wrap it up, as one of my first steps into the visual novel genre I really enjoyed it.
6h played at review · 7 Sept 2026
absolutely loved this game. I’m not entirely satisfied with the ending, but I can understand and appreciate why it ended the way it did. I’m really glad games like this are free on Steam. It’s not one of my favorite games, but it’s definitely one of my favorite stories and i will remember it. -Я вижу Землю! Она так прекрасна! ❤️
5h 4m played at review · 16 Sept 2026

Negative

The only good things i can say about this game are that the art is nice and it's free. Other than that, i feel like i regret the time i've wasted on it. The main character's naivety and delusional ramblings were annoying to read through. I felt that her mindset was clearly some kind of unhealthy coping mechanism - to rationalise how she's been treated and try to find a silver lining to it all, no matter how nonsensical - and i assumed she would have some sort of character development on that note, but she doesn't, and we're stuck with her self-deprecating rants throughout basically the entire game. The game description sets up Ira's disappearance as the focal point of the plot, but it felt like she ended up getting tossed aside in favor of a brand new plot point that came out of nowhere. Speaking of, the twist felt so... i dont know it just makes me mad and confused thinking about it. [spoiler] I thought the game would touch more on mental health issues, considering Asya's fixation on her delusions about the Will Of The Universe or whatever and Ira's condition, but they ended up making a sci-fi twist about how there's a hidden code in the universe and Asya has the power to create distortions or something and just... what??? [/spoiler] I feel like a lot the characters had potential to be fleshed out and developed more but were just dropped in the 3rd chapter which was a shame. Overall the whole plot from the second half of the 2nd chapter onwards felt really confusing and the ending just made me think "what just happened??" Maybe i'm just too dumb to understand the point it's trying to make, but i still didn't really enjoy my time with this game.
4h 6m played at review · 26 Sept 2026
The soundtrack is awesome, the art is gorgeous, and the atmosphere is top notch. To put it simply, I liked this VN; reading it was really pleasant. At least for the 2 first chapters. Toward the end of chapter 2, the story takes a really disorienting turn, the pseudo philosophical conversations started to feel a bit too much of a retroactive continuity. As for the ending, it's the author's choice to leave it open for interpretation, but it just didn't really click with me.
13h 32m played at review · 3 Sept 2026
The characters are great, backgrounds are... fine? History is boredom reincarnated in a game, I mean, it starts good, great start, but as it progresses it just turns into some kind of mental paranoia that does not make any sense and it's not even explained properly. At least the characters were well written... putting aside some aspects.
9h 41m played at review · 12 Sept 2026
If I had to summarize, good start, AMAZING middle, HORRIBLE. cheap, pretentious and uncreative ending that causes me to not recommend the game
6h 25m played at review · 15 Sept 2026