REVIEW

Mutant Year Zero Review

by Luke Walsh, February 1st, 2019

Mutant Year Zero might look a little strange due to the blend of human/animal hybrids that take the centre stage but the game is a nice combination of RPG elements and turn-based tactical games like XCOM while being based on the pen and paper original Mutant.

The game starts around two mutants who are known as Stalkers that wander The Zone after a nuclear war ravaged the land. Known as the last line of defence for humankind and civilisation Stalkers much head out to find resources that help keep the final settlement known as the Ark alive.

The interesting thing about Mutant Year Zero is the game being divided into real-time exploration but turn-based tactical combat. The world is divided up into different sections that you can explore as you set out to find a missing Stalker, along the way you’ll be able to loot weapon caches, collect scrap for upgrades back at the Ark and defeat enemies that wander the lands.

With a unique blend of real-time moving around the world and static combat, Mutant Year Zero feels much more realistic and fun to explore than other games that tend to through you into each “mission”. There are more context and story about the world in Year Zero thanks to the fact you actually get to travel around it between combat.

Added persistency between explored areas adds a nice touch, once cleared an area will remain that way. Not having to worry about enemies popping back up is a relief but the lack of constant resources makes the game more challenging and at the same time more realistic of a post-apocalyptic survival game.

For this reason, the game rewards exploration, finding abandoned camps or old buildings to collect supplies to you can craft vital enhancements to your gear or replenish medkits to keep you alive while away from the Ark.

With a game that relies on exploration tough, the movement of the characters is a little too slow. This is combined with the stealth mechanic can make the game drag a little between areas that have been cleared to new unknown zones. The new take on the XCOM style format, however, is welcomed with the added stealth aspect playing a crucial role in most survival RPG games like Fallout or Metro.

Combat can be initiated by choice at any time when sneaking around the enemies location or it can be accidentally started when walking directly into their line of site. The former allows you to properly asses the surroundings before engaging while also being able to separate your team members to allows for different strategies. An example of this would be allowing Dux the sniper-type to find higher ground and allow Bormin the tankier character can keep focus by charging more straightforward. This meant Dux had a better view of the land and had added crit and accuracy bonuses from being higher up.

Stealth also plays a part in being able to whittle down enemies numbers before taking on the main enemy encampment. Ambushing lone enemies with silent weapons such as the crossbow is useful for improving your odds. It’s a shame it only works on the more grunt level enemies as your silent weapons tend to not be strong enough to take bigger enemies down in the one hit needed before they can alert their mates to your presence.

These more powerful enemies become more and more prevalent in the end game, making your strategy more about damage output than anything else. There’s a number of decent enemy types in the world from snipers to fire-throwing ghouls but the lack of diversity in the ways to take them down is a bit of a shame.

The game takes about 16 hours to complete on Normal difficulty and overall the story is decent enough during the entire journey but feels a little too short compared to how your characters progress while you unlock skills and level them up. There’d be a good call for New Game Plus on Mutant Year Zero as the chance to try out end game skills on all the characters for longer was missed on the first run through.

Mainly because customising your characters is so detailed but also so hard. Each Stalker can specialise in certain areas allowing you to create teams to take on different roles but with so many options resources are limited. Weapons are expensive to upgrade and skills points not being enough for all of them force you to make some tough choices. Some are easier than others when in a zones field with certain monsters, having a Stalker that specialises in them makes things a lot smoother.

Hardcore modes are available for those that want a bigger challenge with no saves being allowed and perma-death of characters but still needs to give more time to players to test their builds. It still does deliver really well though on a different take on strategy games, making it more interesting to explore between combat and provides you with a lot of information to make decisions when in and out of combat without overwhelming you.

Mutant Year Zero was a fun, challenging albeit shorter than hoped adventure of farm animals in a post-apocalyptic world battling other mutated zombies and robots to survive.

A great combination of XCOM style combat and RPG type exploration in a beautifully rendered post-apocalyptic world.