During the recent Epic keynote at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, publisher Funcom and the developers at The Bearded Ladies announced from the stage that Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is finally making its way to Nintendo Switch and that the date to mark in your calendar is June 25th, 2019.

It was also announced that the Nintendo Switch version will come with an expansion DLC that will also be available for purchase on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Lastly, it was announced that a retail Deluxe Edition will also release on June 25th for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch which will include both the base game and the expansion DLC.

Check out the Nintendo Switch trailer above.

The post Mutant Year Zero coming to Nintendo Switch appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

E3 2018 unveiled a raft of exciting titles but none more so than Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden. 

The strange sight of a talking duck walking alongside a grumpy pig had me hooked from the outset and the fact that this was an RPG was the icing on the cake.

MYZ is a grim, wisecracking, hilarious, silly, ridiculous game that I’m in love with. This is less Saints Row silliness and more XCOM 2 tactical strategy, this combination of losing yourself in the ambience of the post-apocalyptic environment and having to keep your wits about you as you plot out your next fight is one that I couldn’t get enough of.

The game starts with you taking control of Stalkers Dux (the Duck) and Bormin (grumpy pig) as you wander through the surprisingly lush wasteland on your way back to the final Human settlement, The Ark. This also serves as your home base where you can buy everything that a mutated Duck and Pig could ask for, weapons, armour, medkits, grenades, upgrades and attachments are all here for you to purchase. Pro tip: buy the discount when you first get to the Ark, its the best first option. You are then sent on a mission to find the legendary stalker Hammon, who recently left the Ark to search for the fabled city of Eden, but he’s the only one who can keep the Arc running so he’s pretty important in the scheme of things. So off you go on your merry way.

You head North to see where Ol’ Hammon went and you encounter an interesting, albeit not entirely fleshed out, storyline that takes you on a good journey as you begin to understand more about what’s going on around you. Trekking through the forest, encampments, towns, bunkers are fun with the different terrain and obstacles providing a really interesting conundrum when plotting your attack.

Ghouls and robots are running rampant around the world, each wanting to kill you for being a Stalker. Why can’t we have a little sit-down and talk through our problems over a nice pot of tea? Fine, have it your way, time to shoot faces.

The combat is tactically fun.

You need to scout the area to know how many enemies are loitering, where they are, the type of firepower they have and where the best position to attack from is. Your group can split up to make positioning easier, taking advantage of the terrain. One mutation that Dux has is the ability to grow moth wings and use these to gain a height advantage in combat. You can also use this ability to reach high perches and have the constant high ground in a battle. Each turn you get a set number of moves you can perform, move, fire weapon, reload, use an ability, throw a grenade, heal. Using each of these at the right time take a little work before you become familiar with the most efficient way to see off your foes.

Take your time to understand the fight before you engage as there can be enemy reinforcements just around the corner who can turn the tide for their comrades. Also, make sure you move to positions that provide you with a 100% hit chance. I don’t remember how many times I’ve missed 75% shots where if I had moved a few tiles in either direction, I would have killed the ghoul. Medkits are important too. Stock up if you can.

The weapons and armour in MYZ are good.

You have your traditional post-apocalyptic mash-up of 19th-century gunpowder weapons and modern accessories. Loud guns should be supplemented with a silenced weapon to pick off enemy stragglers without alerting their friends eating smores just around the corner.

On your travels, you will find scrap that can be traded for items back at the Ark, weapon or armour crates with hopefully something fun in them or a clue to the story. These items can be hard to find sometimes so make sure to use the flashlight to highlight these hidden objects. Sneaking is also a thing in MYZ which is not just useful when positioning before battles but is even better when using it as a tactic to not engage with enemies and just steal their loot. Some of the tougher early areas can be looted for good gear by using sneak.

The arc of the game is great and I really enjoyed the how tough the encounters were. If I was out of position or not concentrating, I was made to pay and failed a few fights by being too cocky and aggressive rather than sticking to my plan. My enjoyment of this game went through the roof when I realised that I couldn’t just steamroll everything and had to consider my strategy throughout (and I was only on Normal difficulty).

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Some won’t like the way it plays but I’d be willing to be there are a lot more people who will fall in love with the game just as I have. Give it a chance.

The post Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden PC Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Of course the world ends, it was just a question of time.

Extreme climate change, global economic crisis, a lethal pandemic, and increasing tension between old and new superpowers. For the first time since 1945 nuclear weapons were used in armed conflict. Mushroom clouds rose from east to west before the dust settled. The humans are gone. The Mutants are here.

Funcom, the independent games developer and publisher, and Bearded Ladies, a Sweden-based game development studio that includes former ‘Hitman’ designers and Ulf Andersson the designer of ‘PAYDAY’, today announced a brand-new game called Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden. Proudly standing out as a tactical adventure game, it combines the tactical turn-based combat of ‘XCOM’ with real-time exploration and stealth gameplay, wrapping it all up in a deep storyline set on a post-human Earth.

The game, which is being developed by Bearded Ladies and published by Funcom, is set to release in 2018 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Players must take control of a team of unlikely heroes, such as Dux (a crossbow-wielding, walking, talking duck) and Bormin (a boar with serious anger issues), and help them navigate a post-human Earth with its abandoned cities, crumbling highways, and mutated monsters on every corner. The ultimate goal: save yourselves by finding the legendary Eden.

“It’s an unusual label for a game, but tactical adventure really fits the bill, no duck pun intended,” says Executive Producer Ulf Andersson at Bearded Ladies. Andersson is also known for being the designer of the 2011 megahit ‘PAYDAY’. “Our goal is to blend the deep and tactical combat of ‘XCOM’ with a branching storyline that unfolds as you explore overgrown forests and abandoned cities with your team of Mutants. Mixing that with real-time stealth gameplay gives you a unique way to approach or avoid combat situations you encounter while exploring.”

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is powered by Unreal Engine and will be available on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 in 2018. The game is based on the classic ‘Mutant’ IP that has spawned several popular pen and paper role-playing games since the 1980s, including the current Mutant: Year Zero from Free League and Modiphius Entertainment.

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