Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden
Xcom 2 is one of my favourite games and I have to stop myself on a semi-regular basis and so when I first saw images of Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden I was very interested. The game released earlier this month uses a three man squad based half real time exploration and half turn based combat and scratches some of the itch left by xcom 2 in my life.
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden takes place in a dystopian future after some epidemic has ruined civilisation and lead to the mutations and salvaging for parts. This gave lots of the levels a similar grey/brown feel which became a stale after a few hours, but the dialogue between the characters (mainly Dux and Bormin) kept this enjoyable, even in the most dull moments because of the information and knowledge being shared, which is often a distorted view of the reality of the past world. The level design is much more purposeful and feels a more puzzle based rather than strategic as it definitely feels like there is a right way and a wrong way to approach each encounter, rather than a way that is more likely to work and less likely. While it was cool to silently pick off outer patrols before sneaking into an encampment and destroying it’s leader I would have loved to have been able to battle through in my own way and it still be successful. I think is most obvious in the level House of Bones which I honestly thought would be the end of my playthrough because of it’s difficulty and sheer stupidity of enemy design, but I did eventually push through this and ended up looking back at that level as a learning point rather than a learning curve.
The scavenging of broken weapons, electrics and old artefacts helps with the world building and makes your weapons feel powerful when you finally come to upgrade them, although I would have liked to see some more upgrades made available, especially in the late game as this feels scarce because of a lack of imagination rather than by design. By the end of the game I had more med-kits than I would ever need, not because I had been hoarding them, but rather I had nothing else to spend my resources on. It would been cool to buy some different ammo or extended magazines to diversify my playstyle.
The addition of the real time exploration does allow for faster movement when out of combat and if done properly allows you to position yourself better for upcoming encounters but in my playthrough this so rarely was the case as while I was positioning at least one of my party members would be caught out of position and messed up my hard work. The only time I thought that this was a worthy addition was on the rare occasion when I could sneak through a difficult encounter without engaging and so with a little refinement I can see this system being super-beneficial to any turn-based combat game.
I would have liked to see the party expand from the three to four during the late game to give some more options for fighting and allow you to engage in some bigger firefights as three mutants was always too few to ever feel like I had the freedom to set up a trap or kill zone for my opponents (in fairness I feel the same about xcom 2 and the move from 4 squaddies to 5/6). The mutation system is also cool and allows SOME freedom to play but the restriction of one passive, major and minor mutation was annoying and the duplication of lots of the mutations was disappointing because their was plenty of scope to go crazy with some of mutations that could have adapted the gameplay so much. Hog rush was the definitive most valuable action that I ever performed and coupling this with the run and gun was OP to put it mildly. Dux’s kneeshot and fly were also handy and offered some much needed slow-down to some organic enemies when I felt too outnumbered.
The story was pretty by the numbers and told through a mixture of in-game dialogue and painted snapshots with some voice over and saw the party uncovering the secrets of Eden and about their origins as mutants, but this was by far the biggest disappointment that the game offers as the game just ends after a certain point, it feels abrupt and really lacks any punch, especially as even I could point to the logical conclusion of the campaign with just one more mission. Perhaps this will be addressed in a future dlc?
It ought to be mentioned that through my playtime on xbox one x Mutant Year Zero crashed a number of times and had even more glitches that weren't game-breaking but did effect gameplay, such as; dux being stuck in the air, controlled enemies being unable to do anything and being unable to shoot enemies next to the player characters. When these moments happened there was always something else I could do to complete my objective, but it still took away from the gameplay significantly.
Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is a good game, no substitute for Xcom by any means, but its purposeful design means that it can be completed in easy chunks that will take you no longer than 15 hours to complete. I picked this up on xbox gamepass and so it was essentially free, but I would recommend this to anyone looking to go back to some turn based strategy with some new ideas.
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