Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden - Delicious Flavour

Some minor spoilers follow for items and side quests of Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden.

The greatest thing about Mutant Year Zero has very little to do with the playing part of the game. Don’t get me wrong - the stealth and strategy elements of this game are excellent fun - but the one thing that continuously brought a smile to my face was simply the words.

Based on the table top RPG of the same name, Mutant Year Zero is positively dripping with brilliant flavour text, well voiced one liners and delightfully descriptive proper nouns. I’m not usually one to care for item descriptions, but when they’re this well written, I couldn’t help but soak in everything I could get my grubby boar hands on.

There are plenty of post apocalyptic settings to dive into if you’re looking for an escape from our current late capitalist hell - one could argue we have an unhealthy obsession with the idea - but a well thought out interpretation of the old world by those that live amongst the remains elevates a setting from just another wasteland.

Mutant Year Zero’s timeline is deliberately vague; current day is close enough to the collapse of the world order that humanity’s mechanical remnants still function, but far away enough that the knowledge of how they function is on the cusp of disappearing. The people that are left know enough to understand humanity destroyed the earth using weapons capable of unimaginable destruction; yet the idea of a small rectangular device inscribed with a piece of fruit is baffling. Why would a fruit tester machine also play music through tiny earbuds?

The world itself is incredibly evocative in its naming conventions and quest design. Abandoned hospitals are a dime a dozen when it comes to post apocalyptic set dressing, but how would a group of roving travellers who had no concept of such a place understand this large building? Where now, patients’ remains lay still in their beds, as nature reclaims the crumbling concrete walls? “House of Bones” sure has a foreboding, if fitting, ring to it.

One particular side diversion leads you down the path of key collecting for the seemingly pacifist mind control ghoul Lux. When you collect the key, you might prefer to take a peek at what the door it unlocks is hiding… and find a room full of mind controlled people producing peddle powered electricity, with Lux’s prize possession tucked away in the corner - “A rope of electricity powered ceremonial religious lights”. Stalker Selma piped up in my play through with a bit of background; she'd heard that these lights were displayed once a year by the Ancients, in a "ritual of mass consumerism."

It was already easy to be driven through Mutant Year Zero’s wonderful world through the gameplay alone, but what truly enhanced my experience were the little things. I couldn’t wait to explore every nook and cranny on the way to Eden, a world with a personality all it’s own.