Finished Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden last night (according to Steam, clocked in at 30 hours). I left a positive review as well.
I thought I’d leave some comments here for the dev team, prospective players and other players. I will avoid spoilers but things that may be slightly “spoilery” I will hide.
The story was interesting and the cutscene style I thought fit the material more than a fully animated version would have. The one slightly jarring issue is the same one “Dead Island” had where the characters in the cutscene aren’t necessarily the characters you have active in your squad implying that the whole group is actually there when they aren’t.
I found the game world and backstory to be interesting and hope to see more of it in more games in this world (either with the Stalkers or perhaps another group). I also found it refreshing that the setting is post-apoc Europe (I’m assuming Sweden) rather than America.
I loved the little jokes here and there (Camp Moose, a certain artifact in an ancient Robot shop), it helped lighten the mood in a bleak world.
The game itself was fun to play (although at around level 15 I did drop the difficulty from “Hard” to “Normal”), I did run into some issues where the next part of the quest required me to be in a zone where the enemies were a bit higher than me in level (enough for a red skull) so I’d have to go level up a bit in one of the optional side areas. I’d lightly suggest that the dev team changes the leveling so those are always optional.
I liked that the enemies do not respawn, it helps make it feel like the Stalkers are making a difference. Although it does make it more difficult if you find yourself underlevel for the next part of the story.
I only ran into a few bugs, most of which could be cleared with an immediate save/load, which is refreshing in this day and age.
Some suggestions:
- Sequel
- Slight leveling balance pass, make sure the optional areas are optional
- The cost to buy items at The Ark are a little too high given the amount of scrap to be found
- The two later squad additions should have silent weapons with them, or available, if you’re trying to play the game as stealthily as possible it’s a bit of a hindrance (unless you move weapons around). (You can buy a crossbow at The Ark but it’s insanely expensive and you have more important items to buy.)
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When dealing with Lux, there’s three different things you can do but the option I took didn’t have any actual ramifications. I used the key and opened the door to discover the source of his power, and while there was a fight with Lux, the people stay there anyway. They should perhaps be free, or have them say “I like doing this.”… something.