Two of the characters chatting in the woods.

There’s a major difference, though: you walk around in real time and can try to position yourself for battle or bypass enemies that way. There are also ways of taking down enemies without being detected, so you can pick some of them off without alerting their allies. In many maps this is necessary, as you will almost always be heavily outnumbered.

Here a stalker (one of the player’s characters) is hidden inside the detection area of an enemy, Chili.

How shooting looks in the game.

Not that anyone will care, but it annoys me a bit that in German it says Schiesse instead of Schieße (although it’s technically valid as an uppercase substitution).

How shooting looks in the game.

Not that anyone will care, but it annoys me a bit that in German it says Schiesse instead of Schieße (although it’s technically valid as an uppercase substitution).

The party levels up frequently, and level-ups are used to add mutations or improve certain stats (health, movement points, or grenade range). You also find plenty of equipment to improve the team’s capabilities, and some of it can be upgraded with scraps, which you find in ruins or lying around.

View of the mutation buying area.

Finding gear in the wild.

The game has three difficulty levels: normal, hard, and very hard If I’m not mistaken, these were originally easy, normal, and hard, which might have been a better fit. . It recommends hard if you have played similar games before, and the name fits — it is actually hard. Resources are limited, even mutant power uses. On easy, though, not only is health fully recovered after fights (unlike on the other difficulty levels), but mutant powers are restored too, which is a great boon. I did switch to easy for some parts, as I didn’t really want to spend that much time on the game, and there’s no way to farm since resources are fixed.

Not that farming would help much for experience anyway — once you have the full mutation list, further level-ups serve little purpose, as they don’t affect targeting, available equipment, or anything else. It’s not a major strike against the game, but it is a surprising design decision.

The DLC, Seed of Evil, introduces a new character, new enemies, and new maps, but no real new mechanics (aside from a few additions to the mutant powers). It was a bit weaker than the base game, in my opinion, but still fun.

The story itself is relatively simple but good enough. It largely follows the first campaign from the tabletop RPG, and some extra content, and contains major spoilers for newcomers to the setting, so if you’re planning to play the tabletop RPG you should either wait or at least mention it to the rest of the group.

In summary, a fun tactical game that lets you immerse yourself in an interesting post-apocalyptic world. Recommended for fans of the TTRPG (though the feel of playing will be very different, of course) and of tactical RPGs in general.