Miasma Chronicles tries out the Mutant Year Zero team’s new game

Mutant Year Zero was a “moderate success,” according to its authors. post apocalyptic strategy Bearded Ladies It received great reviews and lots of sales and downloads, but what surprised the Swedish team was a completely unexpected audience. “We made the game with XCOM fans in mind,” the CEO said. Haraldur Thormundsson At a meeting at Gamescom 2022. “Instead, we found that most of the people who loved Mutant were RPG fans, not strategy games. Indeed, in the end, the most critical ones were XCOM fans who disliked the differences between Mutant and XCOM”.

However, the real cold shower came with a mediocre take on Corruption 2029, a tactical stealth that’s mechanically identical to Mutant Year Zero but with a decidedly unnamed cast of characters.

The development team had proven to be able to cope with the rules and dynamics of XCOM-style games, but the success of their early games relied heavily on the appeal of the characters and the world in which the story takes place.

Born with this awareness, Miasma Chronicles is a project that the studio wants to get back on track. “This time around, we created something specifically designed for Mutant Year Zero fans who are eyeing the RPG genre and put even more emphasis on the story and the characters,” explains Thormundsson. we have to find I tried the Miasma Chronicles demo At Gamescom 2022.

History and characters

If Mutant Year Zero is set in a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by anthropomorphic mutants, Miasma Chronicles doesn’t shy away from that idea. In the near future, it was completely devastated by a cataclysmic force called the planet. miasmaconsuming entire cities, turning animals into hideous monsters and turning most of the human population into dark matter.

In this scenario, Elvis is grown up, a young man abandoned by his mother who decides to seek him out with the help of a large robot named Diggs. Curiously, before being abandoned, Elvis was given a mechanical glove from his mother that seems to be the key to discovering more about Miasma’s origins.

There playable demo Gamescom is set in the early stages of the adventure, when Elvis and Diggs travel to the mining town of Sedantary to repair the damaged glove. Sedentary, which has become the refuge city of Miasma survivors, is full of people to chat with and shops to shop (in Miasma, the currency of the game is plastic collected from the street). However, not only will it be possible to leave the borders of Kentucky and visit other states of New America, but during the adventure Miasma will continue to move forward, transforming the places visited and the people who live there.

“Compared to Mutant Year Zero, there’s a lot more room to explore the characters, the cinematics will be plentiful, and the dialogue will all be fully dubbed,” says the producer. Mark Parker. Elvis and Diggs walked through a series of offices engulfed by Miasma, with crystalline human figures standing around a desk, one on the phone by the window, the other two secluded in another room. As in a modern-day Pompeii, the game’s environments tell little stories of those who lived in the moments before the disaster.

“The tone is very serious and scary, but there will be little jokes and a lot of dark humor,” Parker explains. We will try to reward anyone who wants to take the time to explore: whether it’s secondary quests, objects or details about the story and world, it will always be possible to find something. You’ll meet other people along the way, but you’ll always need to have Elvis and Diggs on the team, even if you see eight spaces on the party menu right now. The team is more aware than anyone would find this limiting, but the goal is to create a coherent story between the game and the cinema, with the protagonist of the story always present in both the battles and the dialogues. Thormundsson later said, “In Mutant Year Zero, there was the possibility to freely switch party members, but players always used only Dux and Bormin from their team.”

tactical spirit

Don’t get me wrong when the authors say they’re getting closer to RPGs: Miasma Chronicles remains basically a turn-based tactical game, and once you get into battle, battle system It’s clear that it’s a refined version of Mutant Year Zero. You can sneak up on them, flank enemies, and freely position characters to prepare for an ambush. Throwing bottles and making noise can cause distractions, while using silenced weapons can also knock out an enemy and drive away before the battle begins.

Once the opponents are warned, the formula is now the formula established in the tactical game genre. Each character has two actions per turn, which will be spent moving, attacking, or going to the aid of their friends; Like Mutant Year Zero, it becomes imperative to pay attention to and look for the best way to get around opponents and gain an advantage. All it takes is one mistake, one risky move or one bad luck, and the whole fight can end in disgrace. Inspired by fighting games like Street Fighter, the team added an indicator that increases as damage is taken: “Once charged, you can’t do Shoryuken,” Parker explains, “but you can hit 100% effective.”

Additional bonus damage can then be added to this percentage based on other factors, including location relative to enemies. Things will get even more interesting as more and more unique abilities can be unlocked: one of them allows Diggs to transform into a shield and act as a mobile protection for other party members. Among the team’s customizations are: chip miasmaUpgrades inspired by the Materia of Final Fantasy that give weapons bonuses and special abilities such as shrinking, freezing or electrocuting enemies.