One of the first games we tested at Gamescom was Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, welcomed by Tascha who joined Funcom in April (nice tattoos by the way!). We missed the introduction, traffic was hell around Koelnmesse but sat down and immediately started playing. My friend and I agreed on one thing rather fast though, this game has potential to be something really great!
Published by Funcom and developed by the Swedish The Bearded Ladies Mutant Year Zero sets itself apart by a cast of great characters. I always had a weakness with human-like animals. The mutated cast of characters, for example the duck Dux is remarkable in design, gameplay features and voice. Based on the pen-and-paper RPG, the love for the post-apocalyptic world was clearly obvious so I’m curious to know more when the full release is out.
Overwhelmed by hidden enemies …
One thing the game has besides unique characters is the stealth gameplay, I’m sure most gamers will just use the brute force approach but checking out the environment and avoiding enemies by sneaking past them will make your life much easier. I had the most fun sneaking around anyway, looking for hidden enemies so you could place your trio of characters in a tactical way. Once the fighting starts it is very similar as Xcom, might be a little bit more challenging too if you didn’t take out some enemies in stealth. The present devs assured us that Mutant Year Zero wasn’t an easy experience, as I witnessed while playing it!
Visually the game is up to the task, environments looked darky and the atmosphere was what you would expect from a place that is full with mutated animals. While it was a little bit weird to hear the main casts voices for the first time it did make sense that they didn’t want to fool around adding duck or pig noises. Nothing bad about the voice actors because every spoken word was believable and helped with the overall mood.
Turn-based fighting …
When you are discovered by the enemy the game switches from an adventure mode to a turn-based fighting mode. If you are familiar with Xcom you know how this works… you take turns and try to survive all the enemies. This by strategically placing your three playable characters and using the abilities, those abilities can be learned with the experience that you get. So you have some pretty deep RPG-elements too. Learning what your hero can do is important, else you never have a chance to survive all the hordes of enemies.
When we got out the press room for Mutant Year Zero all I could think about was how excited I was to play some more. I am a pretty big fan for the genre and the combination from the lore and dark world really spoke to me. Bring on December 4, 2018.
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