Mutant Year Zero Gets Free Demo & Challenge Mode, Removes DRM
Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden, the turn based tactics game starring anthropomorphized animals, got a major update a couple of days ago. The update added a demo, a new challenge mode, a bunch of fixes and improvements, and disabled the DRM entirely. It’s a boon for both existing players, and those who were eyeing the game from a distance, not sure whether they’d really like to dip their toes in the irradiated water.
The demo is available via the game’s Steam page, and it includes everything “up to and including reaching the Ark”. I haven’t played the game myself, but a quick search shows this includes the opening area, scavenging for some items and a couple of battles. It should be enough to give you an idea of what to expect further on town the road (to Eden).
The challenge mode is called Stalker Trials, and it’s a bit ill-fitting. It involves playing through “remixed” maps and competing to climb up the global leaderboard. From my experience, these kinds of games often don’t pack the same punch when you play their battles out of context (which is why I never got into smaller mods for Shadowrun), but your mileage may vary.
The fixes mostly involve crashing and other performance issues, with a few quality of life improvements here and there for good measure. You can check out the full changelog here. One of the bigger changes involves removing DRM altogether, which comes as a surprise to many, since the developers were perceived as mocking those who criticized them for using Denuvo way back when the game launched.
That’s all water under the bridge now, though, and the point is – you can try the game for free, and if you’ve been avoiding it because you believe the DRM it used is restrictive and harmful, that’s no longer an issue.
