Between so many great AAA games we had the opportunity to just sit back and relax with our steam deck playing, well, reading primarily a good story travelling across the American Southwest with characters we enjoy being around. Highway Blossoms: Gold Rush Edition is an oldie but a goodie on PC. It recently got out on PS5 and we pretty much liked the time we spent with it.
Reading, reading, and some more reading
Highway Blossoms is a kinetic visual novel which means we spend most of our time reading dialogue, watching the characters interact and listening to the fully voiced story. This shouldn’t be underestimated as the story is really good and we had trouble putting our steam deck down and focusing on something else.
Amber Golley is travelling through the American Southwest in the motorhome. She inherited this badboy from her grandfather. On her trip she comes across Marina Hale, whose car has broken down. Marina is convinced that an old miner’s journal contains clues to hidden gold and, as is the way in these situations, the two are travelling together in search of it. The treasure hunt, however, is just a reason to get those two together and to give them a platform to , ahem, getting to know each other.
It’s a great approach. The game takes its sweet time introducing us to both girls, allowing their personalities to come through during their conversations. Amber is more reserved while Marina brings considerably more enthusiasm to pretty much everything she does. Their differences create plenty of opportunities for humour, teasing and increasingly affectionate interactions as the journey continues. We don’t control their relationship, but we do get to spend a lot of time watching it develop, and the chemistry between the two carries much of the story.
The story is fully voiced in English. The talented voice acters do a wonderful job to convey the lines with believable emotions. There are also journal entries, collectible material and other little things to discover as we make our way through the story.
The hand-drawn characters are expressive, and the backgrounds are well done and filled with mesmerizing views of the American Southwest. The soundtrack fits the road-trip atmosphere beautifully. It all works Watching the landscape change around Amber and Marina while musicin wondorous ways and we did get a nice sense of travelling somewhere rather than merely moving between story backgrounds.
A lot of story
The Gold Rush Edition has the original Highway Blossoms and Next Exit. We weren’t surprised when we found out that the first story is roughly 90,000 words, while Next Exit adds another 40,000 or so. That’s a lot of words dancing on your screen and the lines seem carefully written, they flesh out the charachters so well, making them instantly likeable. It was easy to connect with them and want to know where their journey takes them.
The PS5 version is a straightforward console release of the Gold Rush Edition and the game works comfortably with a controller. We’re mostly sitting back, sipping tea and pressing a button to continue from the comfort of our sofa.
The road
Highway Blossoms is a long, fully voiced story about two women travelling through the American Southwest, falling for each other and finding time to also get themselves involved in a treasure hunt along the way. It’s a good story to settle down with because Amber and Marina make for pleasant travelling companions.
Game: Highway Blossoms: Gold Rush Edition
Developer: Studio Élan
Publisher: Sometimes You
Platforms: PS5, PS4, PC
Genre: Kinetic Visual Novel / Romance
Players: 1
Voice: Full English voice acting
Content: Highway Blossoms + Next Exit
Story length: ~130,000 words combined
PS5 features: DualSense vibration, Remote Play
Release date: October 7, 2026
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