Epic Games Store is still giving away free games for the holidays, and today's pick is the XCOM-inspired Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden. Like the other offerings, it's only available for 24 hours, so head to the Epic Games Store and snatch it up before it's too late. It's usually a $35 game, making this one of the better deals in terms of cash value we've seen from Epic's promotion so far.
In case you haven't heard of Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden, we're big fans, so much so that we included it on our round-up of the best games like XCOM last year. Of course, instead of XCOM's story of an alien invasion, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden takes place in a world where humans have largely gone extinct due to climate change, pandemics, and a global nuclear war, and as such the characters are mostly animal-human hybrids mutated by radiation, like the anthropomorphic pig and duck you can see in the image up top.
While its combat is undeniably inspired by XCOM, calling Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden an XCOM-like isn't telling the full story. Obviously the setting is entirely unique, but its key innovation is stealth sequence that happens before each battle where you sneak your three-animal squad through enemy blind spots and, if successful, have the chance to scout the area and position your team advantageously.
