Taken for a Quickie | Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden - Seed of Evil

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Following a recent game update rectifying accessibility issues on Xbox One, we were finally able to dive back into the unique stealth and XCOM-like combat of Mutant Year Zero for an all-new adventure in the Seed of Evil expansion.

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by Sam Sant

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@SlamShotSam

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Developer: The
Bearded Ladies
Publisher: Funcom
​Platforms: Xbox One,
PS4, PC
​Players: 1

Hold up. Can you elaborate on those issues?

The game wouldn’t initially recognise that the DLC was owned for us and many others, making it inaccessible. That’s now been remedied, but you’ll have to finish the main campaign (hopefully you still have a save file conveniently close-by) in order to transition straight in, as the option to launch Seed of Evil directly from the main menu remains absent.

What’s worse is that when you do gain entry to the new expansion, it’s plagued by frequent crashes and full console shutdowns. These can occur during cutscenes, completely cutting you off from certain story beats by placing you after the scene’s conclusion once you return to the game. The same doesn't appear to be the case with the PC version, so we found ourselves scrubbing through YouTube Let’s Plays in order to get the full picture...

Ouch! Other than all the technical issues, what’s new?

Seed of Evil picks up where the main game’s cliffhanger ending left off, whilst introducing a new threat in suffocating roots which have overtaken the apocalyptic safe haven known as the Ark, in addition to its uninhabited surrounding areas in the wilderness known as the Zone.

You’ll kit yourself out with new weapons, armour and character upgrades - plus recruit a fire-breathing, ground-pounding moose called Big Khan (great for crowd control) - in order to combat your party of Stalkers’ biggest threat yet.

In addition to the main story taking place across several new areas, there are five optional side quests tasking you with returning to previous locations where fresh sets of enemies now reside. All in all, there’s about six more hours of excellent exploration, stealth and tactical combat to engage with if you can brave the technical shortcomings.

So you would still recommend SoE for MYZ: RtE fans?

That’s a tough one, honestly. We loved revisiting the rich gameplay and setting, but the shambolic technical state that Seed of Evil finds itself in on Xbox One is frankly unacceptable.

It doesn’t completely wrap everything up with a neat little bow, which in a way fits the fiction, but otherwise it’s more of a great thing - when it works. If you’re looking to play on another platform, this is a good way to invest £12.99, but Xbox fans should definitely wait with crossed fingers for a significant patch.