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A tactical adventure game combining the turn-based combat of XCOM with story, exploration, stealth, and strategy. Take control of a team of Mutants navigating a post-human Earth. Created by a team including former HITMAN leads and the designer of PAYDAY.

What is Mutant Year Zero: The Road to Eden?
Based on the Mutant Year Zero pen-and-paper RPG, the game is a tactical adventure game set in a post-apocalyptic Sweden. As a group of mutant “Stalkers” you are tasked with finding supplies for the last vestige of humanity by exploring the Zone.

How does combat work?
Gameplay in the zone is a mix of real time stealth and turn based tactical combat. As you explore “The Zone” you will have opportunities to avoid enemies with stealth (with their vision displayed on screen). From here you can take out opponents before they can alert their allies or setup strong positioning for combat. Once you initiate combat the game will transition into a turn based affair ala the X-Com series.

Do I get to create my own characters?
No. The game features 5 playable characters who are preset from the start.

Character progression?
You are able to enhance both your weapons and characters by spending scrap and gaining experience points respectively. By leveling characters you are able to unlock equipable mutations that will open up new combat and support abilities (allow a character to fly, or to trap enemies in place).

Is there permadeath?
There is an optional permadeath mode you can enable.

Granted, MYZ takes a short while to find its tonal feet, and starts off making a few too many ‘duck sounds like strawberry float’ gags in the first hour, but the chaps’ loneliness and self-loathing soon overrides that. I will say that that MYZ’s usually sparse dialogue and aversion to cutscenes means there’s almost no space for character to emerge – and later additions to your team are almost entirely defined by their combat roles, not their personalities – and with that I cared only about my own progress, not their goals. (There are, however, some Very Good Hats). It could stand to be far meatier that front, but I’d much rather have it this way than suffer a didactic torrent of cinematics and explication.

Again, I’m greedy. I want a bigger, beefier, more flexible Mutant Year Zero. But that’s because the small, linear but smart, powerful and atmospheric Mutant Year Zero I got grabbed hold of me so completely.

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During today's Epic Games keynote at GDC 2019, Funcom and The Bearded Ladies announced that Mutant Year Zero was on its way to Nintendo Switch on June 25. The Switch version will come with an expansion that is also going to be available on Xbox One, PC, and PlayStation 4.

I you haven't played Mutant Year Zero, you'll be able to buy the base game and expansion as a bundle starting June 25. The package will cost $40 on all systems. Haraldur Thormundsson from The Bearded Ladies said the following about these announcements.

"Ever since we started working on this game, we have always felt it would be a perfect fit for the Nintendo Switch. The game lends itself really well to the... controls and the pacing of the tactical turn-based combat is perfect for an on-the-go, handheld console. We are also excited for the opportunity to tell another Mutant Year Zero story with the new expansion... and we look forward to talking more about that soon."

Developer The Bearded Ladies has unveiled the first expansion for its stealthy XCOM-alike Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden. It's called Seed of Evil, and is heading to PC, Xbox One, PS4, and Switch on 30th July.

Mutant Year Zero, which was inspired by the Swedish tabletop RPG of the same name, released last December. It won many a fan on release, thanks to its solidly designed turn-based strategy action - successfully combining stealth and combat - and its wonderfully engaging cast of animal misfits, as they journeyed across the post-human, post-apocalyptic world.

That same day sees the release of Seed of Evil, Mutant Year Zero's first DLC expansion, which will launch on all platforms simultaneously. Seed of Evil picks up where the base game left off, and introduces new maps and a new threat for our band of fearless survivors to overcome.

A new playable character is also at hand to help assist in the challenges ahead; Big Khan the moose, as he's known, brings two new mutations - Ground Pound and Flame Puke - designed to give players the option "to apply a more diverse playstyle in order to succeed."

Seed of Evil will cost £12.99/$14.99 USD when it arrives on Steam on 30th July (there's no word of a price for consoles yet), and a Deluxe Edition of Mutant Year Zero, combining the base game and expansion, will be available digitally and at retail.

Monkey Man wrote:Finished this today, had a great time, hope there's a sequel. Only problem is a lot of crashes on console which is annoying but not too bad as you can save at anytime on the difficulty level I was playing at.

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