(intense music)
- (Daemon) Much like it's half human, half animal protagonists,
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is a hybrid.
It cleverly cuts through some of the usual strategy
game abstraction by alternating between exploring areas
in real time, and the tried and true tactical combat
you know and love.
The result in game play distills the essence of turn
based strategy games that have come before, into something
that's tough, cerebral, and pretty damn satisfying if
you're willing to learn how to play its way.
(intense music continues)
Adapted from a 2014 Swedish pen and paper RPG,
Mutant Year Zero puts you into an interesting,
albeit cliche, post apocalyptic world where most of
humanity has died, and the world has become a gigantic
ruin. Despite the fact that it pulls from a world with
plenty of source material, Road to Eden doesn't do much
with its aesthetically interesting world.
Don't misunderstand, there's plenty of world building
through end game dialogue and non animated cut scenes,
and text and audio diaries strewn about the world.
- [Game Character] A good position keeps us alive,
turn off your flashlight.
- But these mostly help unravel Mutant Year Zero's
back story of how humanity destroyed itself.
While interesting characters like Dux, the smart alec half
man half mallard,
and Farrow, a tough half woman half fox with a British
accent are appealing, the story never feels vital.
(intense music continues)
You spend most of Mutant Year Zero exploring the various
areas of the world figuring out how to sneak past groups
of enemies, or how to get the jump on them.
Your three character squad roams large swads of old ruins,
searching for scrap to trade, and keeping an eye out
for anything that might want to fight.
- [Game Character] Looks like a family lived here.
Lived here, and died here.
- Though it's simple and intuitive, the stealth game play
feels far more versatile than what you'd expect from an RPG.
With the push of a button your squad can split up so you
can control each character individually, and put them in the
best positions for an ambush.
This two stage system, real time stealth, followed by
turn based combat, makes setting up combat scenarios
quick and easy. It just feels natural.
Planning for a big fight starts even before you put your
team into place. You're almost always outnumbered and
outgunned, so figuring out how to separate and dismantle
a group takes cunning.
To clear out any area, you need plans, on plans, on plans,
but you also need some luck.
The moment you fire a gun, enemies within a certain
range will hear you, and that range is not always clear.
There's a bit of guess work involved.
You develop a feel for it over time, but you're also going
to do a lot of saving and reloading.
(intense music continues)
When you finally pull the trigger and start a big fight,
you better know how you're going to win,
like these survivalist post apocalyptic motif,
resources are scarce and life is fleeting.
You need to finish fights fast, so using your weapons
and abilities efficiently is important.
Despite finding such a neat new way to play out turn based
battles, Mutant Year Zero's RPG systems, like experienced
based leveling, seem to butt heads with the rest of
its mechanics.
Progression, which only exists to ration out skill points,
often got in the way of learning the nuances of using
a squad.
In case it isn't clear, Mutant Year Zero is very hard.
Even on normal, the lowest difficulty, you'll likely
lose a lot.
To win, you need things to go right most of the time,
but they don't always.
Just like in other similar games, someone on your squad
might miss a high percentage shot, or an enemy will use
an unforeseen ability to mess up your plans.
As with most great strategy games though, winning makes you
feel smart. Pulling off a plan that deconstructs all
the enemies advantages and leads a decisive victory
feels very good.
(intense music continues)
By blending real time stealth with tried and true tactics
gameplay, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden breaks exciting
new ground for the turn based strategy game.
Even with some mechanics that don't mesh perfectly with
the gameplay, it teases your brain in an interesting and
insightful ways.
For more don't forget to check out our reviews of other
tactics games like XCom 2: War of the Chosen, Phantom
Doctrine, and Into the Breach,
and for everything else, keep it right here at IGN.
(Gun shot)
(monster mumbling)