10 Most Criminally Overlooked Video Games Of 2018

1. Mutant Year Zero

Sneaking onto shelves when we all thought the year was done for, developers The Bearded Ladies Consulting have produced something that plays like XCOM meets Beyond Good & Evil 2's art design, with This War of Mine's tone.

Granted, many of the line deliveries are macho'd up to the point of occasional cringe, but this turn-based strategy has a thick slice of stealth up its sleeve to compensate. Unlike XCOM, though XCOM 2 showed you enemy awareness zones, so you could plan ambushes effectively, Mutant Year Zero lets you control a squad with one-to-one movement, as opponents embark on routines and animations. This means you can thin the ranks ahead of time, put team members in advantageous positions, and spring your plan from multiple angles at precisely the right time.You'll need to do all of this, because Road to Eden gets hella hard, hella quick.

Thankfully its mystery "what's really going on" narrative keeps things moving nicely, and a crew of anthropomorphised warrior-creatures are a delight to pilot through Last of Us-connoting environments.

I came away thoroughly impressed by Mutant Year Zero. It borrows just enough from XCOM whilst bringing innovative elements to the table, to make for something altogether quite special.