I wasn’t sure what to make of Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden when I first saw its cinematic reveal trailer, mostly because of the giant duck. Based on a classic Swedish pen and paper RPG, it gave a glimpse of a very strange kind of post apocalypse. And while the trailer was cool, it didn’t really tell me what kind of game it was. But after seeing Mutant’s mix of real-time exploration and XCOM-inspired combat in action, I knew the duck didn’t stop there.
Mutant is being made by a small Swedish team called The Bearded Ladies, and while you may have never heard that name, you’ve definitely heard of the last game they worked on. About half the studio came over from Io Interactive’s Hitman team, including Hitman’s game director David Skarin and lead level designer Lee Varley. So it should come as no surprise that a key part of Mutant is stealth. Or more specifically, using real time stealth to set up characters before you spring your trap and initiate combat.