Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden

Mutant Year Zero's clever focus on stealth and pre-combat preparation reward your diligence, its turn-based combat encounters are complex, and they help bolster its all-encompassing post-apocalyptic atmosphere. It is a superb tactical combat campaign that you shouldn't let sneak past.

An unapologetically hardcore, deliciously twisted take on the turn based tactical combat genre. Come for the dry humour and intriguing anarchy, stay for the deep and satisfying mechanics.

The inelegant blend of serious themes and wacky comedy, and the use of what I feel are dated strategy game aiming mechanics prevent Mutant Year Zero from being truly perfect, but it's still an incredible experience that you can't miss.

Mutant Year Zero is a turn based strategy role playing adventure set in a world after the nuclear war. It captures the player with its main characters, world building, good sense of humor and an unforgiving combat. It has its flaws in the form of replayability, and lack of skill depth, but the overall impressions are very positive. Recommended even for the people that are not too much into this genre, and for those who are, it’s a no brainer.

Even though it draws inspiration from X-COM, Mutant Year Zero felt quite unique to me. The mix of real-time exploration and turn-based strategy elements, as well as the tactical decisions concerning each stalker's loadout, makes Mutant Year Zero one of the best games in the genre launched this year. The solid combat system, interesting setting and great voice acting, merge into an appealing formula that the alchemists at The Bearded Ladies unexpectedly discovered while experimenting with various concoctions.

Hardcore fans of turn-based tactics may be slightly put off by Mutant Year Zero’s obvious missteps but that aside, The Bearded Ladies have cooked up a special game here that’s got great potential for the future. Road to Eden isn’t perfect but it’s definitely stood out from the crowd for me in what’s been an excellent year.

With its interesting world and characters and excellent gameplay mechanics which advance the genre with the introduction of stealth and seamless exploration, Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden is one of the best turn-based tactical games released in recent years. The story may have received a better focus, and the combat may have been a little less frustrating, but don't let these small issues block you from getting the game if you're a fan of the genre, as Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden is well worth your time and money.

People are so used to specific styles of turn-based strategy that the way Mutant Year Zero approaches things may seem too different, potentially scaring off fans of the genre as well as newcomers. That being said, there is a lot to like between the polish of the game’s world-building, the genuinely unique approach to encounters, and the flexibility of each character’s skills. If you’re not afraid of a little challenge and are looking for a strategy title that oozes charm, then you may want to dip a toe in the Zone with Dux and Bormin.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is a charming, fun and well-made game with plenty of humor and excellent gameplay. It's an example of how you can expand on a tried-and-true formula in a way that makes it distinctive and exciting. The only thing that drags it down are some bugs and occasional difficulty spikes that feel more frustrating than fun. If you're a fan of XCOM-style games but want a new approach, you should absolutely try MYZ, which is one of the best surprises of the year.

The Bearded Ladies has created an impressive game that is able to make use of the XCOM formula and take it to the next level adding some exploration and stealth mechanics. The result is a fun, intelligent and original videogame that exceeds every expectation.

Based on classic mechanics, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden takes its own way in the genre of turn based tactics, pleasing our eyes and ears with huge graphics, nice music and duckly jokes.

Take a handful of XCOM, spice it with a pinch of classic roleplaying game and ad an unusual scenario – finished is lovingly crafted insider tip for tactics fans.

A tense tactical adventure in an absolutely convincing world that can’t keep the pace it is initially setting.

Quite difficult turn based strategy battles in a densely narrated and graphically great looking post-apocalypse with fascinating animal heroes.

While it lasts, Mutant Year Zero is a tense, absorbing and atmospheric new member of the XCOM family. I suppose wanting more of it is a good problem to have.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is far from being perfect, but it is a great debut game from a small studio.

Mutant Year Zero is one of the most straightforward turn-based games that may be a bit on the short side, clocking in just around 15 hours, but on the other hand it is devoid of any kind of fillers (i.e. randomized grindy levels). The challenging difficulty, the likeable characters and the overall intriguing post-apocalyptic environment creates the appetite for an even more expanded sequel.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden also brings in oodles of personality and an intriguing world through its exploration parts and charming characters that banter with each other through humorous dialogue. The game’s only let down is its focus on delivering more of a role-playing game, which has taken away the replayability that rival games in the genre have going for them, thanks to the use of random generation, but that shouldn’t be too much of a negative on a game that offers a great first playthrough experience.

A tiny jewel in the turn-based strategy genre, Mutant Year Zero boasts a brilliant post-apocalyptic atmosphere and a cast of charismatic people (and animals). The combat system works perfectly largely thanks to the integrated stealth and scouting element. The difficulty may be harsh, but it’s also fair and makes the victories all the more rewarding.

An engaging and challenging offering that’s well worth the time you put into it. If you enjoy adventures like Wasteland or XCOM, you’ll find plenty to love here as well, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. With roots in the tabletop RPG kingdom, Mutant Year Zero was bound to be addictive, after all.

A Successful turn-based strategy with post-apocalyptic environment. Genuine genre work that helps to re-invent the genre. [Issue#292]

A fantastic example of world building done right, but a real test of patience even for veteran strategy gamers.

While it lasts, Mutant Year Zero presents a fresh and involving take on the genre, but its linearity isn't quite such an ideal fit. [Issue#328, p.116]

This is a strategy game title I see myself consistently returning to.

Taking clear inspiration from games like XCOM, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden expands upon the formula by mixing up how you think about stealth, skill trees, and storylines, truly making it a unique and refreshing entry into the turn-based strategy genre.

Mutant Year Zero seems like the natural evolution for tactics games. The real-time aspects make things move faster and add a unique layer of tension. On the story end of things, it manages to keep you interested until the linear campaign finishes up. You won't find a groundbreaking narrative but it doesn't overstay its welcome, and the characters are just charming enough to keep you invested.

Mutant Year Zero has appeared out of nowhere and turned out to be a very cool game. It's great for fans of difficult tactical games that don't want to spend millions of hours in XCOM or Jagged Alliance. Neat graphics, interesting characters, and a good storyline make this game the complete package.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is a good time and deserves to be checked out by fans of the genre. It isn’t something most will be able to jump right into with immediate success, but it’s a game that has a lot to offer for those willing to take the time to learn its ins and outs.

Mutant Year Zero is a great turn-based strategy game with a fresh component of stealth and real-time exploration. A different and original approach to the genre.

As it stands, MYZ is an excellent game that carved off too much meat when trimming the fat. It’s a delicious dish, but it might leave one hungry for more.

Mutant Year Zero Road to Eden is a very good XCOM-like with a strong tactical gameplay, a lovely chara-design, and even a great sense of humor. We can only recommend that you have a look at it.

Mutant Year Zero makes some subtle innovations for the tactical strategy genre outside of combat that transforms this from just another XCOM clone to a clever mixture of stealth, tactics, and RPG mechanics adding up to an adventure that’s highly recommended.

Mutant Year Zero is a nice surprise. A very good tactical game with plenty of arguments to please fans of the genre. A beautiful artistic direction, interesting characters, a quality cast, an efficient and deep combat system, a dynamic exploration system... This is another approach to tactical and a must have for this type of game in 2018.

Swedish pen and paper meets Xcom in a brilliant, post-apocalyptic wasteland. Oozing with atmosphere and intense battles, this little gem of a game should not be overlooked.

Mutant Year Zero is a splendid romp through an apocalyptic world in which tactical stealth battles are the meat of the experience served with a deep, fascinating and carefully crafted world, inhabited by funny and interesting characters.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden provides an exciting take on the strategy RPG genre. Fans of X-COM or similar games shouldn’t skip this one.

Mutant Year Zero is not perfect, it is still at the beginning and it can improve, but it is already today a strategic one with a great character.

In changing the interplay between stealth and combat, Mutant Year Zero spins an interesting and intense new perspective on turn-based tactics that pushes you to get the most out of every move you make.

This is a great action and strategy game, that has the potential to turn into one of the best of the genre. It doesn’t achieve this because some of its design issues, but it is, overall, a great experience.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden has some very good peaks, as for example stealth and exploration, but it also has some missing points, for example the lack of classes and a low number of weapons and powers.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is a game with a lot of charisma thanks to an exceptional characterization of the world and the characters that populate it. Unfortunately, the mix of turn-based tactics and stealth isn’t always working as it’s supposed to, but the game developed by The Bearded Ladies is still able to entertain for about fifteen hours. Maybe next time it would be appropriate to give to the gameplay the same care given to the narrative aspects of the game.

From a gameplay perspective, Mutant Year Zero is a bold but brief experiment in the turn-based genre that largely pays off. Despite my complaints, I still enjoyed it, and I’d love to see more from the franchise. If you can stomach a huge letdown of an ending, the cleverly orchestrated combat and unique world are worth checking out.

With better skill progression, a better take on combat hit percentages (like, removing them and relying on other methods to determine hits), a bit more originality, and a bit less linearity, Mutant Year Zero would have been an easy recommendation to just about anyone. Still, it’s a game that I really enjoyed and hope to see future content for. If you like tactical battles, RPG mechanics, and weird universes, you should definitely check this one out.

In the end, if the balance of exploration, character progression, combat, and story felt more cohesive or in harmony then Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden could have easily been great. This is not to say that it simply needs an ‘easy mode’. No, the hardcore challenge tips the scale too far away from the sense of adventure and story and the RPG-like opening moments. Those first impressions. Whether or not this stance is too critical of the deep and well-executed combat, well, who the duck knows? If the idea of a hardcore XCOM-like experience in a post-apocalyptic mutant world sounds enticing, then, hey, this is essential.

Strong in personality, limited in scope, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is an interesting tactical game which could be very tough if played with the highest difficulty settings.

Due to quick levelling up and relatively small map Mutant Year Zero feels smaller than it actually is, but still don’t expect more than 12-15 hours of moderately engaging gameplay that unfortunately slows down towards the end. [01/2019, p.80]

While it mostly iterates on the foundation laid by other games in the genre, quirky writing and characters help keep things fresh. Unfortunately, Mutant Year Zero’s short campaign and predictable story hold it back from being a slam dunk.

With all its attractive graphics, Mutant Year Zero lacks scale to offer exciting tactical options and does very little to flesh out its intriguing post-apocalyptic world.

A refreshing experience for those who wants a tactical game set in a well-polished universe with interesting scenario and well written characters. Sadly, the user interface is limited and the fights sometimes look a bit sloppy, lacking of clarity and balance.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden’s blend of turn-based tactical combat with stealth is interesting, but not always successful, and its story doesn’t take advantage of its unique setting. Although the ability to explore the world and sneak up on enemies adds a fun twist to the genre, it brings unwelcome complications and technical hiccups as well. I also ran into numerous performance issues, including game-ending freezes, that strained my initial fondness for the game.

Occasionally, Road to Eden comes to life with fun, challenging combat and a smart implementation of stealth. But even so, the feeling quickly disappears as you remember that there’s little to enjoy after you’ve won. The game often seems empty and dull, with under-utilized characters and clumsy pacing, and not enough overarching mechanics to keep you engaged in the long run.

You have to spend hours crawling around, looking for lone enemies that you can gang up on and take out without raising the alarm – because there’s no way you’ll be able to fight everyone at the same time. To put it bluntly – it’s not fun, and Mutant doesn’t have anything else to offer. [Issue#235, p.46]

We find it hard to recommend Mutant Year Zero as the frustrating combat, occasional bugs, slow movement, and awkward camera make us quit to desktop more often than not. But at the same time, the story and the world keeps dragging us back for more. And though it has aged us considerably, if you’re a fan of the source material, then it’s worth it to stick it through just to experience the story. Especially if you’re like the rest of us and can’t get a group together anyway.

As it stands now, Road to Eden feels less like a full release and more like an extended demo.

It's tough not to imagine how a sequel could improve the writing and the exploration to realize what is, at this point anyway, mostly just a lot of potential.