Tales Of Kenzera: Zau review: a beautifully designed yet imprecise platforming adventure

It’s not time to make a change

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/EA

• Developer: Surgent Studios
• Publisher: EA
• Release: April 23rd
• On: Windows 10
• From: Steam , Epic Games Store
• Price: £16/€18/$18
• Reviewed on: Intel Core i5-11340F, 16GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 3060, Windows 11

Until I played Tales Of Kenzera: Zau I figured people had run out of ways to make original platformers , but an Afrofuturist story-in-a-story framing for a mythological platformer about healthy ways to deal with grief sure did teach me to not underestimate human creativity. I really liked a lot about Tales Of Kenzera, and got annoyed by a bunch of stuff too - and the division seems to be that a lot of the former falls on the story and design side, and the latter on the mechanical side, which I guess isn’t ideal for a platformer. But still, I think it’s worth persevering.

You play as the titular Zau, a young shaman struggling with the recent death of his father, so his solution is to help death, personified as an older man called Kalunga, with defeating three powerful spirits who refuse to move on. If he can do this, Kalunga will owe him a boon, which he intends to use to resurrect his father. Here we have a very comprehensible video game story, where the three spirits in question function as landmark boss battles against, e.g., a big lightning eagle or a wood owl made of fear. They’re striking designs.

But Zau’s story was written for - and is being read by - Zuberi, by his father, who has also just died. As you play through the game Zau learns about the natural rhythms of life and death, as he sees the ways the land suffers when the spirits refuse to move on, and meets other characters like a father missing his son, and a young girl whose mother is evading death. Thus Zau, and Zuberi, also gradually learn to accept their grief. It’s like Gris , but less annoying to me, specifically. In fact, the framing of the story as the telling of a mythological fable really enhances the story, because it’s exactly the sort of practical moral that you’d encounter in a tale handed down by your ancestors.

Zau was taught his shamanic skills by his dad, and chief among these are the Sun and Moon masks that you can switch between at the tap of a button (controller is recommended, here), and which give you separate animations - a detail I loved - as well as separate skills. Moon powers are more ranged and crowd controll-y in combat, while the Sun gives you dual spears and melee combos, and they both have huge special attacks that deal big damage in a pinch. As you continue, you get more abilities layered on top to help with traversal. You get jumps and double jumps and a dash, of course, but later on your Moon form allows you to freeze water so you can jump up waterfalls or run along ramps, and your Sun gets a long-range lance that activates switches. Add to the list a more powerful dash, a kind of lasso jump, the ability to glide, and to reform or destroy certain structures.

Extra curricularYou can level up Zau to have extra abilities (like Sun combo attacks setting enemies on fire, which is a good one), but you can also complete shaman trials - extra hard bits of platforming - for tokens that give you passive buffs, or shrines or other sources of extra power to level up quicker.Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/EA

It’s a lot, and if you put this game down for more than, being generous, 72 hours, you will probably forget all the controls (and the game doesn’t have a diagram of them in the menu, so good luck figuring them out again). But there are times when, during traversal, you get into a beautiful flow pattern, where you leap and glide over hot air, avoid some crystal spikes by a mosquito’s pube, jump over a load of collapsing platforms, and dash to safety, without breaking a sweat. At the same time there are sections that rely on timing your jump to a lava explosion you can’t quite see, or where inputting a jump at a slightly wrong angle will send you hurtling into an environmental hazard. Respawns are pretty instant, but an unskippable chase sequence that you complete by memorising it over repeated fails isn’t so fun when your next failure swings round just as quickly.

The world you explore is more of an unalloyed delight. The world map is deceptively large, with a few fast travel points - although I found these to be too rare to be useful, and despite hidden collectibles and challenges, Tales Of Kenzera doesn’t really function as a Metroidvania anyway - and has strikingly different areas. You travel through deep mines, arid plains, and lush jungles, each housing the remains of a village. They’re all beautiful, with tons of detail and depth even though Tales Of Kenzera is a side-scrolling game, and it feels lived in as well as slightly magical, though you end up tracking back and forth a bit on the journey to and from your quest markers.

But while the world is full of beauty, it’s also full of monsters. Your main enemies are the lingering spirits of former warriors, who aren’t fans of Zau wandering around bringing death to their front door. There are ranged attack spirits, melee, mini-boss tanks, mischievous little tricksters who explode on defeat, and others who look like insects and syphon your health. Backing them up are floating snakes that spit acid and tiny flying lizards that divebomb you. Sometimes the bastards will show up shielded to Moon or Sun damage, the better to encourage you to switch up your attack style. It’s an impressive amount of variety.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/EA

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/EA

But it is, I think, a bit too much variety in practise to be entirely fun. The rhythm becomes apparent: you’ll have a tough plaforming section, then a bit of a run, and then you’ll enter an area with a conspicuous amount of platforms for no apparent reason - at which point walls covering the entrance and exit slam into place. You then have to fight several increasingly difficult waves of enemies in an enclosed space, like opening a tin of sardines and finding out all the fishy bastards want to kneecap you. Rather than becoming a fun, frantic exercise in using all the skills you’ve learned, it becomes a chore where you end up doing the same rote things no matter which enemy you’re facing anyway.

This isn’t helped by the fact that there are some small, but annoying, bugs to contend with as well. While I was playing sometimes Zau got stuck in crouch, and at others he continuously jumped, which is no good to anyone. Neither was his ranged Moon attack automatically firing straight up instead of at the enemy. They’re not game breaking, but they’re frustrating to contend with - especially in the middle of a fight, and most especially in a boss fight against the three big spirits - one of which is just a giant platforming level.

Tales Of Kenzera shows great precision in its character and world design, in the writing, in the voice acting, even down to individual animations. But it lacks precision in some areas of the combat, in particular the platforming, which arguably is the bit that matters more in a platformer. For me, I’m not sure it does! Despite my frustrations - I have evidence in the form of furious texts to a friend about how many times I attempted one sequence where you have to sprint up waterfalls to a timed gate, and another that features a jump- dash in time to land on a platform floating on a lava fountain - I’d like to see what other tales can be told in Kenzera.

This review was based on a review build of the game provided by the developers.

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Tales of Kenzera: ZAU

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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