You hit F to split up your party and guide them individually into position. You've noticed one enemy's patrol route takes him away from the others. The tension is ratcheted up during this pre-combat exploration phase, as you're tip-toeing into hostile territory, identifying how many enemies await you, what types they are, what levels they are, whether they're patrolling, where those patrol routes take them, where their vision cones intersect, and so on. You're still moving around in real time, just slower and more discreetly. When you spot an enemy you can enter stealth mode by switching off your flashlight, thus slightly reducing your visibility but also greatly reducing the distance at which the enemy will spot you. When you first enter an area you're in exploration mode and free to walk around in real time. They're not especially large-bigger than an XCOM map, but hardly sprawling-and typically centered on an identifiable feature: a scrapyard, a school, a subway station, a fast food restaurant, and so on. The Zone is divided into a couple dozen maps networked across southwest Sweden. If you've done your scouting properly, you'll know what's coming and know which stalkers to swap in and out before you tap that spacebar. Up against dogs? You'll want at least one stalker, probably two, with crowd control abilities to prevent their melee rush. Up against robots? You'll want at least one stalker, probably two, with an effective EMP attack.

Should you spend literally all your weapon parts on the close-quarters effectiveness of Bormin's scattergun, or are you better served improving the ranged potency of Dux's crossbow? You can only afford one right now and, since there's no capacity for grinding, it may be some time before you can afford the other. The limited number of weapons and sheer expense of upgrades means you're forced to make tough choices.

But Dux and Bormin, the two starting playable stalkers, are different they're mutated animals, a duck and a boar, respectively.Īt first glance, there's a lot you can do to customize each stalker and gear them up to specialize in certain fields, letting you mix and match your active squad based on the task at hand. Everyone, even those safe in the Ark, has been touched by mutation. Stalkers are sent from the Ark, one of the few remaining hubs of human civilization, into the Zone to scavenge for scrap and fend off the bandits, ghouls, feral dogs and worse that now occupy the ruined towns and suburbs. Road to Eden depicts a post-apocalyptic Scandinavia where resources are scarce and knowledge of what the world used to be is even harder to come by.

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