Mutant Year Zero Road to Eden Review

A pig, a duck, and a fox walk into a bar. It’s not the start of a joke, but rather the underlying premise of Mutant Year Zero Road to Eden. You play as mutant warriors called Stalkers, who are tasked with leaving the relative safety of their home – called the Ark – in order to collect fuel, scrap, parts, or to fill any other of the needs of the citizens and their leader, the Elder.

Once you leave the Ark, you enter the “Zone” which is filled with ghouls (bad guys), robots, and other things. This leads us to the gameplay. If you watch the trailers, you might be misled into thinking this is simply an XCOM clone. And while it has turn-based tactical RPG gameplay, that is not the main thrust of the game. I mean, you could attempt to take every group of enemies head-on, but it would be very difficult on you, even on Normal. The best strategy is to be patient, sneak around, single out enemies, and silently take them down. Mutant Year Zero works best when you play it as a stealth game rather than a bang-bang shoot fest.

Those stealth mechanics and strategies take further development as your silent guns don’t have enough strength to take down enemies alone. You must use and enhance your mutant abilities to improve those tactics. Bormin, the pig, essentially becomes a tank, Dux, the duck, can quickly take the high ground for shooting, and there’s even a character who can take over enemy minds and control them. Finding the right cast of characters, developing mutations, looting and enhancing weapons and armor make the game very interesting.

I will say that this game is tough. I played on Normal difficulty for this review, but the game insists that it was meant to be played on Very Hard. That said, the harder difficulty may prove to be the better experience as I was able to roll over enemies pretty easily and it became a bit monotonous at times.

The character designs and environments in Mutant Year Zero Road to Eden are beautifully crafted and clearly, time and effort were put into the game.  The writing is also spot-on – between the mannerisms of the mutants and their reactions to our culture and lifestyle – are well written and humorous.

Mutant Year Zero Road to Eden Review Final Thoughts:

Overall, Mutant Year Zero Road to Eden is a well-crafted breath of fresh air in the tactical RPG genre. If you are a fan of these kinds of games, it is well worth putting your hard-earned dollars on. It is also different enough to not frustrate newcomers and the unfamiliar alike.