Swedish developer The Bearded Ladies has released Corruption 2029, a new tactical strategy XCOM-like title. It’s essentially a Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden successor by the same creators.

Set in a dystopian future United States, Corruption 2029 puts us in command of a squad of heavily augmented soldiers. Stuck behind enemy lines, they infiltrate a totalitarian nation to find the source of an ominous corruption that turned America into a war-torn wasteland.

Much like with Mutant Year Zero, which is an excellent game, Corruption 2029 core mechanics are centered around tactical combat and stealth. While exploring the environment, we have to decide whether to engage enemies in a full-frontal assault, take them out stealthily one by one, or ignore them and move by undetected.

In the gameplay video below, Lee and David from The Bearded Ladies take us through 30 minutes of exploration, stealth, tactical action. We can see different types of weapons, special augmentation skills, and partially destructible environments.

Corruption 2029 is heavily based on the same framework as The Bearded Ladies’ previous title, which is an interesting design choice. Instead of reinventing the game engine, they repurpose it, changing the assets and adding a new plot and theme. This highly reduces the “time to market” for their latest games, and at the same time, lets them continue to invest and polish their game engine.

For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of playing MYZ yet, you can actually get both Mutant Year Zero and Corruption 2029 at the price of one AAA game. If you love tactical games, you probably should.

Corruption 2029 is out now as a PC exclusive via the Epic Store. I do hope PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch versions are not far behind, but as of right now, nothing has been announced.


Some of our posts include links to online retail stores. We get a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Don't worry, it doesn't cost you anything extra.