Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden
About
In Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, the player controls a trio of weird mutant warriors. It is based on a 1984 board game Mutants.
Setting
The game is set in a post-apocalyptic world, in which a nuclear war annihilated all humanity. Many years later, Earth is inhabited by the mutated creatures that look like combinations of humans with other animals and things. There's The Ark, a neon-lit sinkhole that serves as the hub for the player characters. This is where they can buy ammunition and armor, meet other characters and accept quests. Then there's the Zone, a largely unexplored dangerous world where Mutants roam. Somewhere in the Zone lies the legendary Eden, a safe haven where they can find all the answers they seek.
Characters
The game has three main protagonists. First, there's Dux, the duck-headed wise-cracking mutant with an attitude. Then there's Bormin, a huge gruff pig that has anger issues. Their third companion is Selma, a seemingly human female who has protective stone skin. Each of the characters specializes in using certain weapons and has a set of special mutant abilities.
Gameplay
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden combines real-time exploration and stealth system with square grid-bound tactical turn-based combat in the vein of X-Com series. The player controls the three characters as a party, switching between them when needed.
System requirements for Xbox One
System requirements for PlayStation 4
System requirements for Nintendo Switch
System requirements for PC
Where to buy
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Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden reviews and comments
Microsoft from Deutsch
Microsoft from Deutsch
Average playthrough goes like 10-13 hours depending on how good you become on taking out the ghouls and robots. There is some variety in enemies to get you to mix up your strategy and set of abilities.
3-man squad and 5 characters but some are too good not to choose for the main roster so doesn't really play that much of a choice here. The only thing that you might miss is the comments and banter from characters but they are few.
Gameplay, as I said, is heavily inspired by XCOM but the stealth mechanic is pretty fun. You get to pick out scattered enemies if you have the damage to do it in one turn. But then again it can be quite ridiculous when a robot blows up near a guy that is looking your way but 8 squares away so the game thinks that you are hidden from him. Also, the percentage to hit is always either 25, 50, 75 or 100%, no hard math here. So there are less true XCOM moments where you miss 99% shot... It's a more forgiving game, overall.
The Lore and voice acting is pretty good, especially how the writers decided to have some fun with how modern things would look like to survivors of the nuclear wars: metal birds aka planes, iron serpents aka trains and so on and so forth.
The plot is pretty straightforward and simple but you don't really play this game for the twists and turns. The ending though did disappoint me. I mean, why on Earth do you make it so obvious...
All in all, I'd be glad to come back to the sequel or DLC if it brings more variety to the gameplay, enemies, character abilities.