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If there are two
things I love
in games, it’s
turn-based
tactical combat
and sneaking
around. No, wait,
three things – turn-based tactics,
sneaking and animals. Who doesn’t
love animals?
Mutant Year Zero is the rare game
that has it all. Its XCOM-style tactical
battles are all housed in a larger map
that you explore in real-time, finding
caches of loot and evading enemy
patrols. It’s a little like ‘90s classic
Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines, if
the commandos in question were a
human-sized duck and pig.
I decide early on that no animals
will be harmed in the making of this
article, which means avoiding as
much of the game’s carefully crafted
tactical combat as possible. So, every
time the pulsing circle of light that
represents an enemy’s field of vision
approaches, I quickly snap off my
mutants’ torches and crouch them
behind the nearest crumbling wall or
radiation-blasted tree.
Truth be told, this aspect of Mutant
Year Zero’s stealth is a bit hit and
miss. Occasionally I’ll be spotted by
someone looking the opposite
way. And despite the derelict
ambulance blocking any
line of sight between
us, combat will trigger,
giving the enemy that
all-important first turn.
When it does all come
together, though, it’s
incredibly satisfying. My
mutants skulk through the
long grass, following a butcher –
that’s an enemy type, I don’t think he
actually runs a meat counter, though
it’d be a good motivation for my duck
and pig to do him in. His patrol route
puts him in a spot far from the rest of
his squad, and my boys close in.
I tap X to launch an ambush. This
time, the advantage is mine, and as
long as I can take the butcher down in
one turn, his raider friends won’t have
any clue what’s going on.Dux – he’s the duck one,
surprisingly – raises his crossbow and
drops the butcher with a silent bolt to
the head. I take a moment to savour
my own brilliance as the game jumps
back to real-time, allowing me to pick
off the rest of the herd one by one.Quack shot
Alas, it doesn’t go this
smoothly every time.
Every shot has a
percentage chance of
hitting, which means
there’s also a chance of
my oversized duck leaping
from cover... and missing
completely. The problem
worsens as I push through the
game and encounter enemies with
more health than my guys can chip
off in a single turn, even as my party
grows to three, with the addition of
Selma – who is boringly human, but
does wield a silenced pistol.
See, it turns out there’s a slight
issue with my ‘softly softly’ approach:
you don’t get XP for dodging a fight,
and so while the threat of the world
scales up, my menagerie stays stuckat lower levels. After becoming well
acquainted with the loading screen’s
dice animation, I have to accept that
avoiding animal cruelty is going to
mean skipping every fight I can.
Before long my resolve is tested,
as I spot a loot crate’s sparkle in
the dim light of a tunnel. It’s likely a
new weapon, maybe something that
could help solve my damage problem.
But it’s guarded by two high-level
enemies. I watch for patrol patterns,
to see if we can sneak in... but they’re
all firmly standing their ground.
And so a duck, a pig and – the odd
one out in this scenario – a woman in
a hoodie all shrug their shoulders and
just walk on, sadly, into the gloom. QSneaking a duck, pig and human safely through the apocalypse
ain’t easy in Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden ALEX SPENCER
PUBLISHER FUNCOM / DEVELOPER THE BEARDED LADIES / FORMAT XBOX ONE / RELEASE DATE DECEMBER 2018“His patrol route puts him in a spot
far from the rest of his squad, and
my boys close in”
WHAT IS IT?
Mutant, the
long-running series
of tabletop RPGs,
reimagined as a post-
XCOM tactics game...
with giant shotgun-
wielding pigs.100 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE
extra