Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden | Xbox One | Review

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Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden takes the turn-based tactics integral to its tabletop namesake and mixes them with real-time stealth and exploration, giving life to a hybrid brand of gameplay which fittingly mirrors the title’s overarching themes.

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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

Developed by some of the talent behind Hitman and Payday, it’s perhaps easiest to liken Mutant Year Zero to the thoroughly excellent Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, in that combat heavily channels XCOM and encounters are separated by spates of third-person adventuring as a party of three. While the anthropomorphic, oddball cast of mouthy mutants in Road to Eden are likeable enough, they really can’t hold a candle to Mario and co., so it’s fortunate that the game does a better job of tying its seemingly disparate styles of gameplay together.

Combat and exploration are seamlessly married here, as, rather than simply crossing the threshold into a designated arena to kick things off, you’ll utilise stealth to ensure you have the greatest possible advantage before manually triggering a battle. Using silent weaponry, it’s possible to pick stragglers off to gradually thin core groups of enemies and allow access to advantageous positions - like full cover or high ground - in order to better plot and execute a meticulous ambush on the main, unmoving force.

You’ll need to build that plan around your character loadouts and abilities, in addition to enemy weaknesses, as a carefully considered approach is all but compulsory. If you’re careless and get spotted in the act, you’ll forfeit good cover and the first turn, which means you’ll quickly feel the opposition's full force. At that point, you most often might as well forfeit, as MYZ is pretty punishing even on the lowest difficulty setting.

By nature, random chance can also play a part in turning the tides either in or against your favour, but there thankfully isn’t a great deal of scope for missing at point-blank range here, with hit likelihoods kept to nice 25% increments. Still, you’d need to be a bit of a masochist to tackle Hard and/or Very Hard, especially with the Iron Mutant permadeath modifier enabled...

The level of challenge does help every victory feel hard earned though, which is a feeling then compounded by rewarding incentives. You’ll gain experience points to spend across refreshingly concise character skill trees, often in addition to Scrap to spend on gear and weapon parts used to upgrade your arsenal.

Straying from the main path to explore offshoots in the game’s “post-human” take on Earth allows you to uncover these materials in abundance, as well as new weapons and armour, plus even the odd side quest. The latter pair with collectibles to flesh out an intriguing background for what’s a rundown-yet-lush world reclaimed by nature; environments are thick with fine visual details, noticeable even from the game’s somewhat removed, isometric perspective, which makes it a shame that the camera can’t be zoomed in to appreciate them to their fullest.

After any stint outside the one remaining safe haven, a hub area known as the Ark, you can return to tune your kit before heading back out into the Zone, which encompasses the rest of the uncharted world, except for the vague promise of Eden. It’s this illusive, titular paradise you spend the game seeking, initially just as Dux and Bormin, a squabbling and lovable duo comprised of (shockingly) a duck and a boar respectively.

More humanoid companions are acquired along the way, but despite their appearance, everyone in MYZ is mutated in some way or another in order to survive the harsh landscape. All of the party characters are decent, but they only ever share playing third fiddle to the more charismatic leading duo; everyone at least maintains the pervasive air of silliness, quite humorously misinterpreting “ancient” technologies to cut through what can otherwise be quite a bleak atmosphere.

MYZ is a strange game, but in the best way - it’s a mechanics and lore-focused gamer’s game not requiring the sort of time and energy commitment many of its ilk do.

If you can put aside the somewhat cumbersome HUD and a few performance hitches - which aren’t too invasive, due to the game’s methodical pacing - there’s an awful lot both to get to grips with and to be gripped by. Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is a strange game, but in the best way - it’s a mechanics and lore-focused gamer’s game that doesn’t require the sort of crazy time and energy commitment many of its ilk do. For a budget buck, or no extra cost to Xbox Game Pass subscribers, it’s one that fans of role-playing and strategy shouldn’t sleep on.

Pros

• Ties turn-based combat & real-time exploration together through stealth
• High level of challenge makes every victory satisfying
• Bleak-yet-lush world is enticing to discover & explore
• Strikes a good balance between being comedic & serious
• Budget asking price for a game that outshines recent AAA disappointments

Cons

• HUD can be cluttered & inaccurate
• Frame rate takes the occasional hit
• Random chance can undo a lengthy, hard-fought combat encounter

8/10