Games like Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden
Hard West
Heavily fictionalizing the Old West is hot right now, but this turn-based tactical game, inspired by XCOM, likely isn’t going to stand out against the likes of Red Dead Redemption 2. Regardless, Hard West still does an admirable job portraying life in this dramatized version of the American frontier, creating interesting scenarios as a result of its style and story.
Bank robberies, lynching, and the gold rush are commonplace in the game’s world, but just like Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, Hard West has a metaphysical twist.
Death and the Devil directly influence the lives of the local population, creating demons, ghosts, and undead gunslingers that you must fight to survive. While these elements add to the ambiance, the attribute system is what’s most engaging.
Instead of random number generation to determine hits, characters are given a luck attributes. These traits are reduced by the hit chance of a shot and a character is hit if a shot depletes his luck, adding much-needed variety to the usual, overused back and forth approach to combat.
Couple these small changes with the game’s abstract take on the time period and you can understand its allure.
