Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden expands moosewards in June
The moose is loose!
Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden was one of the nicest surprises of last year's tail-end. A whip-smart mix of '80s post-apocalyptic RPG (using an old pen-and-paper setting), real-time stealth and tense XCOM-inspired turn-based combat. The only common complaint levelled against it is that it was too short. Today, developers The Bearded Ladies announced a partial solution to that, in the form of Seed Of Evil, an expansion due out on June 30th, adding new environments, a new set of enemies and a new moose-man mutant to join your party. Below, Big Khan introduces himself in trailer form.
Seed Of Evil picks up where the main game's story ended, and sends your team out further to confront another threat to mutant civilisation. You discover that this is the stomping ground of moose-headed stalker Big Khan, and he reckons that it's all gone a bit Invasion of The Body Snatchers up here. Big scary plants have been eating up the local feral mutants, then spitting them out as multi-eyed plant hybrid monsters. While a cynical man might say this is a clever way to re-use existing enemies, a bit more variety in the threats faced is always appreciated.
The expansion will apparently take place partially in new locations around irradiated Sweden (including the evocatively named Hall Of Electric Coffins, and the Mausoleum of Suburbia), as well as old places overrun by the new baddies. Perhaps not the most ambitious-sounding of expansions (XCOM 2's truly spoilt us), but it's more sneaking, shooting, and snarky animal-people commenting in bafflement at artifacts of humanity past. This is also building on top of the free Stalker Trials update released in February, which added a semi-competitive challenge mode.
Mutant Year Zero: Seeds Of Evil launches on July 30th, priced at £13/15/$15. You can find it here on Steam as an upgrade, or in a discounted bundle with the main game. It's published by Funcom.