Republished on Wednesday, November 30, 2022: Following the announcement of the PlayStation Plus lineup in December, I’m reviving this review from the archives. The original is below.
Biomutant could have been released ten years ago and wouldn’t have looked out of place. Inspiring the old open-world formula with a new take on the RPG genre, studio Experiment 101 seemed to live up to its name. The final product certainly proves that there was a lot of trial and error going on behind the scenes, but Biomutant is more of a failure than anything else. Its original idea fails to leave its mark on an otherwise very mundane open world experience.
It’s the potential to kill youāthis is a very “could-be” type of deal. While many of its mechanics are rooted in mediocrity, it’s clear that Biomutant wanted to go big with RPG systems. Get a glimpse of it in your 20-hour adventure, with speech checks that undermine your overall stats if you go wrong, and difficult decisions that determine who gets to safety while others are left behind can do. The problem is that there are very few of them, opting to be mere footnotes in a colorful but decidedly sparse landscape.
The biomutant world, despite its bright colors and tones, is often muted, so it’s slight. and is divided into multiple regions, each with its own climate and resistance. However, few connect one landmark to the next. Long lawns and basic houses offer no compelling reason to stray from the main path. There’s also no real optional content, with basic fetch quests littering the journal. The later biomes have slightly more variations in appearance, but most of the drawbacks are the same.
It all comes down to seeking either chaos or tranquility (the choice is yours), and it feels basic and overwhelming. It’s simplistic in that it’s modern open-world design makes a big difference, but it’s also formidable outside of the action. The game is so full of systems and mechanics that it’s a good choice for bursting menus.
Balancing three different upgrade trees, a moral system, highly detailed crafting opportunities, different tribes to track down, and Wung-Fu’s long list, Biomutant threatens to collapse under its own weight. With so much going on, it’s easy to get lost in the menu. Without comprehensively describing all the options and mechanics it offers, Biomutant feels like reaching a star that ran out of fuel before the ozone layer. Too many people feel they could have been approached with
Less ambitious is the combat itself, which can be somewhat satisfying depending on the weapon used. Some bats and big hitters lack real vigor. Basic combos can overwhelm most combatants, and customizable guns can deal damage at long range. Adding character to the engagement is comic-style text that pops out after each successful combo. Damage numbers are scattered across the screen to tell you how much you’re affecting enemy health bars. Nothing that greatly enhances the combat system beyond mediocre, but at least they’re deceptively cool.
A long list of abilities tries to expand your range and abilities in combat, but it doesn’t really do much. Enemies have too many bullet sponges (or melee sponges in this case?), so power feels almost irrelevant when they have little effect on your health bar. .
Fueling the hostility is the complex crafting system, with add-ons allowing you to customize every part of your acquisition. Probably the most striking aspect of Biomutant. Developer Experiment 101 hit the town with a huge range of possibilities. Seemingly random household items can be arranged into weapons of mass destruction and further upgraded and improved. If there’s one thing the title nails, it’s this. The results when applied to combat may be questionable, but what the system really delivers is quite impressive.The number of weapon combinations you can think of must be off the charts.
Trying to put all these mechanics together would be a flimsy story about the Tree of Life and the tribes that take refuge next to it. It’s all pretty unfunny, but the real kicker is the narrator. tells you what they are saying and what they mean. This removes any personality they may have. Their expressions flatten out, they lose their peculiar quirks, and their mannerisms fail to convey. The narrator removes the possibility of forming bonds with other characters, as their chatter is absorbed and spewed onto you through a third-person lens.
Further dwarfing any conversation attempt is the dialogue option you have to choose. Most of it is presented as questions rather than statements. It’s a strange design choice that robs you of many meaningful decisions. Especially if you have a moral system that likes to make itself known as often as possible. You don’t have to care whether you consider the to be bright, dark, or somewhere in between. Indeed, it’s very obvious that any of these morally affecting decisions will come up, but the discussion in between doesn’t seem to matter. I don’t think it’s a system worth actively engaging with if only one of them has something to say.
The game’s downfall short of full reproach is the frame rate, which is in reasonable shape following the patch issued during the review process. Available on both PS4 Pro, the former console achieves that goal for the most part. A quick stutter will occasionally interrupt the flow of combat or traversal, but they are rare. Aside from the fairly regular texture pop-ins and glitchy lights, it’s technically very smooth. To make that happen, be sure to download and install all updates.
Conclusion
Biomutants may have been something special, but no ambitious project can capitalize on that being different. , is hampered by the overload of other mechanisms and overwhelming menus. By trying to do a lot, Biomutant skipped the part of building a solid foundation. There’s still potential here, but it didn’t materialize on the first try of Experiment 101.
