Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden – A Look at the Characters

With its quipping anthropomorphic ducks overlaid on top of the generally gloomy post-apocalyptic atmosphere, Funcom’s recently released tactical stealth adventure Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden seems to be at odds with itself. However, this Eurogamer article takes a closer look at Mutant Year Zero’s cast of characters and ends up fairly impressed with how well they work within the context of the game.

Here are a few sample paragraphs and you take it from there:

Personality goes a long way with games. Just an ounce of it can elevate a game from the crowd. And Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden has heaps of it.

This post-apocalyptic adventure is X-Com with a dash of stealth and exploration. It’s based on a decades old tabletop game simply called Mutant which was itself rebooted into Mutant Year Zero a few years ago. It’s very popular in Sweden, where the game’s creators Bearded Ladies, hail from. While it provided the world Road to Eden would live in, this adaptation leans on one particularly potent characteristic of the tabletop game. One thing that just stands out immediately. The X-Com trappings are as solid a foundation as you can get but it’s the world and the characters that held my attention. Because there’s no getting round it, the first thing you’re going to notice, the first thing everybody is gonna want to talk about with this game is the badass duck man.

These mutants are rightfully the star of the show but as eye catching as they are they’re more than just a pretty(?) face for Mutant Year Zero, they’re the beating heart of the whole game and the reason I stuck with it for a dozen hours to the credits. Called Stalkers, they’re tasked with venturing out into the zone and scavenging supplies to keep humanity’s last refuge going. A thankless task if the grumpy residents of the “Ark” are anything to go by.

Their appearance is incredibly striking though. This strange mixture of anthromporphic animals and post-apocalyptic survival gear sounds like a bad idea on paper but the execution absolutely sells it. These animals feel as battered and tactile as their weathered coats. A bit of duct tape over a scarred beak or an eye patch sewn in over a missing eye. Making the absurd convincing isn’t easy but Mutant Year Zero walks the fine line extremely well. Even once you start dressing your team up in silly hats. It’s just a bit of a shame none of the women mutants get to be as monstrous as the half-boar, half-man Borhmin.