Will I miss anything by playing this before Geneforge 1 - Mutagen?

[thesandworm]

I own Mutagen, I'm just super hyped by the coverage for this one but I don't know if there's a throughline for the first one, or it just takes place in the same "universe."

[.//slayer]

Mutagen establishes the world of shapers and is a great game in its own right, but there is nothing essential there to understand the plot - everything you need is covered in G2.

G2 may have some references to the events of G1, but again, nothing that you can't do without.

The biggest thing is that every new game in the series adds new features and grows more interesting in terms of mechanics, so there's that.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

I personally played Geneforge in the order 4, 5, 3, 1, 2.

I do not recommend this order, but I understood things reasonably well. (Though 4 was perhaps the most confusing starting point I could have picked)