Biomutant Review- A Unique, Flawed Experience

Developer: Experiment 101

Publisher: THQ Nordic

Release date: May 25, 2021

Available on: PC, PS4 (reviewed), Xbox On

Plenty of RPGs detail a post apocalyptic world, whether it’s ravaged by war as in the Fallout series or suffering from a dose of infected humans like in The Last of Us. Developer Experiment 101 gives us their own take on the post apocalypse in their new RPG Biomutant, where the world is ruled by mutated animals after being heavily polluted by the corporation Toxanol. The game mixes in martial arts combat coupled with firearms, along with psychic powers and fully customizable mutations. The result is something quite unique. Sadly, the experience becomes marred by technical hiccups and some odd design choices. The flaws don’t doom the game, but they do hold it back from what it could have been.

You begin by customizing your character, a raccoon-like creature whose appearance and coloring can be done to your liking. You also choose which mutation and class to begin as, which you can match to your individual play style. Later on you can alter your outfits (of which you can have multiple ones keyed to a number for easy switching), as well as modify both your melee and ranged weapons with a fun crafting system. Materials are gathered from enemies as well as totems you find throughout the world. Outfitting yourself well is key as you go up against the four Worldeaters, large beasts that threaten the Tree of Life, which helps keep the world liveable. Along the way to defeating the Worldeaters you’ll have assorted quests to tackle as well as uniting the world’s multiple tribes. Choice plays a huge role in your ending, giving the game a good amount of replayability.

Graphically, the game is filled with vibrant colors and interesting creature designs. The Worldeaters are nicely varied, each requiring a little bit different strategy to take down. Taking out the other tribes is sadly not so varied, as they all boil down to the same, repetitive game loop. There’s fun to be had in the combat, and mixing things up between psy powers, guns, and melee weapons helps a little to keep things fresh. It does however become too easy to simply button mash and rely on old standards, and this can get you quite far in the game. If you choose to do so, combat can be a lot of fun and feel fresh with each new enemy type you encounter. Fetch quests do bog things down prior to fighting a Worldeater, as you often need to collect parts for the vehicle or mount you’ll be using for that particular battle. Fortunately, there are plenty of signposts to mark as fast travel points, and the fast travel really helps to make things less tedious.

The various characters you meet on your journey (which can take anywhere from 20-40 hours, depending on how much you explore and how many side quests you do) are all fairly likeable. The game has the animals speak in their own language, with text to translate. There is a Narrator, who frankly can get quite wearisome. Reducing the speech volume to zero fixes that, but then you can also miss story bits. I recommend turning the Narrator off if he bothers you (it can make the game much more enjoyable), but turning him back on for the game’s final mission. Finishing the game opens up New Game +, where you carry over all your weapons, outfits, and abilities and you start the game at your first major choice, so you don’t have to replay the prologue all over again. The game encourages you to make different choices, so you can experience different endings.

The technical flaws rear their head early enough, but aren’t so intrusive as to completely ruin the game experience. Load times can be a bit long, and frame rate drops become more common the farther you get in the game. I did have one game crash, but lost no progress with it. Design choices can also frustrate. The game has tons of climbable areas that are inexplicably unavailable to your character. You can lose your balance going across a rope, which makes little sense for a creature that’s supposed to be very nimble. Early on the game teaches you to swim, then later imposes a fast disappearing stamina bar whenever you enter the water. Toxic areas can also be a real nuisance, though you can find specialized suits for these areas. The bad thing there is that can require you to go on fetch quests, which can feel stale quickly.

In all, Biomutant proves to be quite unique in the post apocalyptic game genre, but technical flaws and odd design choices hold it back from being what it could have been. Still, there is plenty of fun to be had here, and with multiple endings giving it a built in replayability means players will get their money’s worth. It’s a game that shows developer Experiment 101 has a lot of promise, and lessons learned with this first effort can surely pay off with their next title.

8/10 stars