Biomutant

I've got gadgets and gizmos a-plenty,
I've got whozits and whatzits galore…

I really wanted to love Biomutant. I first got my hands on it way back in 2017 at Pax West. It had its hooks into me right away with its vibrant world, fast action, and its incredibly recognizable protagonist. What I wasn’t able to experience at the time was its narrative, its quest system, and how the game would feel moment to moment. While my anticipation grew throughout Biomutant’s long-gestating development, I never hyped it up. Now, after completing it, the finished product has left me mixed, and in many ways has left me uncertain on whether or not I enjoyed it.

Biomutant is developed by Experiment 101, a small development studio that consists of just over 20 people. This small team size certainly places the game somewhere around that of an indie release, but its attachment to THQ Nordic does place the game within the confines of at least being AA, despite the AAA price given to it, though strangely, it’s almost $20 less for a retail copy here in Canada. Even THQ Nordic has addressed that they are not AAA, and that is something I agree with. The ambition of what Experiment 101 has here with Biomutant is massive, but its inclusion of so many systems causes the game to buckle under its own weight, becoming a jack of all trades yet never excelling at one thing in particular.

Now, Biomutant as a whole has incredible potential. Despite any issues I have with the game, of which there are many, this is a franchise that under the right direction and course correction could be something stellar in the future. So many of the building blocks to get there are here in spades, it’s just a shame that so much of what I dislike here seems baked into the game’s DNA just a bit too much for me to realistically see it changed. Still, I lost track of how many times I would be exploring the wild frontier Experiment 101 has crafted here, gazing at the wide-open blue sky, the massive tree roots spanning the distance, to the countless underground lairs and structures that seemed to never end. For such a small team, creating a game so visually pleasing and massive in scale across multiple platforms, I’m wildly impressed, but at the same time, wished the team didn’t grasp what was so evidently out of reach for them.

Biomutant at its most basic premise is what happens when the world is coming to an end, at least, for a second time. We get mentions of a cautionary tale of humanity’s mistakes, the pollution and what-have-you that has led to widespread mutation the world over, and of the human race’s mysterious fate. Where it focuses its narrative on is through the Tree of Life, which has become polluted by a poisonous oil that lies beneath it. Its roots, which reach to the far corners of the map, are also under attack from four threatening World Eaters that you must deal with, while also trying to piece together what happened to humanity, and how your own kind can avoid such a fate. Now, your own created character comes with some preloaded backstory, one that has you dealing with a fifth and final boss, an encounter that is largely uninspired when it comes to its own mechanics, especially as each of the other bosses are at least unique confrontations in their own right. Here, it feels like you are simply fighting a larger regular enemy who just happens to have a massive health bar or two.

While there is a predefined story, you’ll make a few choices as you progress throughout the game that will dictate your ending and other factors along the way. This is mostly through picking a dark or light alignment choice, tainting your path with a certain viewpoint of being loved and respected or feared by the world around you. While there was potential in seeing those choices play out through vastly different endings, each conclusion is identical other than a few small scenes that play out and the dialogue that accompanies them. New game+ allows you to see these different endings by speeding up your involvement at the start of the story, but going in and expecting wildly drastic differences will only invoke disappointment.

Now, there is a point to picking an alignment, but it is strangely through a few combat options. You have a series of special mutations, which are called Psi-Powers, which are reflected in whether you lean more to the dark or the light, and of course, a currency you’ll earn as well. Telekinesis and Skyspark, for example, are dark powers, whereas Ki-Spark and Levitate are those of the light. New game+ allows you to keep your weapons, abilities, and alignment but allows you to then dip to the other side to allow for both sides of the alignment coin to be used. Honestly, I had far more fun my second time around due to the mixing and matching of powers that were originally locked off to me due to how many points I had in light versus dark.

This alignment also favors your choice of what tribe to initially join as while the game has six to choose from, you’re essentially given the choice at the start to pick one of two; one that is peaceful, yet strangely bloodthirsty for you to defeat the other tribes and one that is wanting you to essentially cull the weak. Each tribe has a viewpoint on saving the tree or gaining power, so you’ll choose one at the start to kickstart the game’s morality system. My first playthrough was one of light, so the Jagni tribe was who I first aligned with, but as they couldn’t shut up about unity, I started to have second thoughts.

You can convince the other tribes to join your cause by either defeating them in battle, thus earning their tribe weapons, or through dialogue if your points are high enough. But in the end, you’ll have each of the tribes join you, even if it doesn’t really seem to matter much in the end. I also found it odd that you are given the chance to accept the 3 remaining tribes’ surrender after your third tribe falls in line, effectively having the remaining tribes just up and roll over for you. I get what the team was trying to do with the tribes, but it’s another system here that feels vastly underbaked and might have benefitted from a more in-depth system focusing on just two tribes instead.

Now, the way in which Biomutant tells its story, your interactions with other characters, and your exploration around the world, is through a narrator. Biomutant features vocal work by only three actors, with about a dozen others that are there to make grunts and growls in a gibberish language spoken by the various creatures you encounter. The narrator and the two beings that represent the alignments are the only characters that actually speak English. However; and this is BIG “however”, is that apart from the little imps that represent the light and dark, your narrator will speak for every single character, paraphrasing their dialogue, mentioning their quirks, their culture, and detailed explanations of the world around you, as well as jokes that should have been left on the cutting room floor.

This narrator, for me, instantly removed all personality from the game’s characters and story, resulting in my immediate disinterest in anything the game had to say. There are so many wonderful characters that you’ll encounter that could have been brought to life here, and while there is some charm in their gibberish, the narrator just gives them all his tone and cadence, meaning every single character you encounter is a visual puppet for his voice. Performed by David Shaw Parker, who reminds me a lot of Stephen Fry’s narration in Little Big Planet, simply has too much of a presence here, instead of being used sparingly to give context where needed. If each character had their own voice, and the narrator was used sparingly to guide you along with the world, then I’d likely have a different take here, but how it’s implemented just destroyed my interest in its world and characters to great effect.

My last bit of criticism of its story is the jibberish within the jibberish and the repetition that is built around it and the core gameplay loop. This affects not only the main story but the constant barrage of fetch quests where nearly every objective here is “find” this or how many of something you’ve “found”. Each of the supporting characters will operate in the same gameplay loop. You’ll meet them, they will ask you to find something, and once found, you’ll gain access to what they provide. However; most characters will have you go find another character who also needs help, and you’ll repeat the same “fetch” objective for them as well. This always revolves around finding an item that is named something like a Twing-twang for a guitar, or Quacks for a duck, yet they often don’t call non-collectible items by something odd as, for example, they know what a cupboard is. And, even if you were to find many of these items, such as a phone or a radio up in some abandoned tower, the narrator makes the same remark and phrase each and every time.

Progressing through the story will place you in one of several biomes scattered around the game. These run the spectrum visually of what you’d expect as well as several of them having the need for high resistance to heat, cold, radiation, and more. As you level up your character with skill points and various currencies you’ll discover, you can eventually get those resistances high enough to where you’ll be able to freely survive, that, and there are hazard suits tailored to each biome that you can track down as well in case you don’t want to spend all that time and effort building up said resistances. Each biome, which ranges from forests, mountains, beaches, toxic wastelands, open lush fields, are often gorgeous, and spacious enough where you never feel like you’re going to run out of areas to explore.

The exploration and traversal across these areas is rather impressive, and I would often just pick a direction and go, seeing what my little fuzzball ninja could find. You’ll also have a few mounts to tinker around with, from mountable creatures to watercraft and a mech, with both of the mechanical ones having a wealth of customization as well, should you put in the time to track these pieces down. While the mounts are great, there are odd times or locations where you can’t summon them. Not all bodies of water will allow the boat, you can only use the mech in biohazard locations, and the creature mount can’t be summoned while standing on pavement for some reason. There is a finger gun tank you can obtain, but apart from the novelty of it moving like a spider, it was something I never used more than once, which was the case with the submarine, as seen above, as It was only really used during a boss fight.

Now, as you pick your character and tweak sliders to change their look, their fur, and various other factors, the type of class they are will alter their look just the same. Stronger characters are bulkier, smarter characters are thinner and more brainy, but this largely just affects your starting stats as leveling up will allow you to place puts into your vitality, strength, intellect, and whathaveyou, as well as using Bio Points to learn various biogenetics like hurling mind-altering moths at enemies, or mushroom caps that cause you to jump high into the air. Your character also practices what is called Wung-Fu, an art passed down by your mother, which grants you weapon capabilities for your close combat and ranged arsenal. By using your upgrade points, you can unlock combat attacks, additional moves, and oddly enough some weapons come with everything unlocked from the get-go.

Biomutant allows for a wide range of combat with unarmed, one or two-handed weapons, dual-wielding, hammers, staves, and more. Each of these weapons comes with a variety of stats and bullet types, but it is in the crafting where things get interesting and is honestly one of the best parts of this game. Crafting allows you to tinker with an existing weapon or piece of armor, and by finding resources such as razer blades, wrenches, hammers, bananas, and more, you can crudely attach them to your gear to increase its efficiency. Up until the last few hours of the campaign, I was using a basic rifle that was doing some pretty decent damage. A few bunkers and some abandoned homes later, I found some really high-end loot that caused it to take on a skill called Autotrigger, which not only boosted my damage but increased the fire rate in such a way where I went from widdling down an enemies health bar to flat out destroying it. Previously, I had an issue with some enemies being such bullet sponges, but after crafting this masterpiece, that complaint is only mildly there instead of something that I felt was a major issue. That said, some enemies can still soak up far too much damage for their own good.

The basic flow of combat is somewhere between the Arkham games in how you can flip over and slide under enemies, and that of something like Devil May Cry with your ability to move from swords to guns in an effortless ballet of destruction as you’re hopping into the air, pressing a few buttons to trigger a combo, and before you know it, you’re juggling enemies in the air and then performing a downward slice with your blade. Combat can feel a tad floaty and not feel like you’re really hitting anything, but there is a fluidity to the whole thing that does still make it wildly enjoyable. I think if the rumble was a bit more pronounced on a hit and a stronger visual indication that you’re hitting something, and those complaints would be all but gone.

Biomutant also goes a long way into making its loot have personality, with weird helmets and outfits that can certainly feel like it’s something you’ve cobbled together from several different eras and regions because that is exactly what it is. Each item, as is the case with your weapons, can either be crafted to add on bits and pieces to make it more effective, as well as upgrading the materials as well. You’ll use resources from breaking down gear, but selling gear will also grant you Leaves, the game’s currency. Often, I would break down stuff that sold for low amounts and depending on my funds, I would sell those that got me more in return. The only problem with gear is that by using the systems to make it much better than when you found it, I went almost 8 hours before I would find something better, meaning for all this charm and personality to its loot, so much of what I was finding was literal crap when it came to its stats. Still, the loot and crafting here is something I will give the team credit for as it is a fleshed-out system that does a lot more right than wrong.

While you are out and about, you won’t be alone, as your lethal little fuzz bucket will be accompanied by an Automaton, a mechanical grasshopper that has the capability to learn a variety of functions such as a reusable health item with a cooldown, a flashlight, glider, and turret. Many of these skills must be learned as you track down an NPC that wanders about, placing you back in the past during a fight that will somehow make your character remember that they had that ability all along, they just forgot about it. In a perfect world, I would have preferred if this mechanical little friend was the narrator, operating as the Clank to your Ratchet, but sadly, he is not.

The last bit of gameplay is the few puzzles you’ll find around the game. These are switches and dials that are moved and rotated to align yellow with yellow, and white with white. You’ll find these as valves, guitars, phones, radios, globes, and nearly every possible thing you can think of. It’s a shame we don’t really get more variety in the puzzles, as these do lose their charm after the first few dozen, and some are a bit obscure in how you’re supposed to manipulate them at first. I had only once where the puzzle was solved already for me, and no matter what I did, it wouldn’t accept it as it was, even if I rotated the dial around back to its win state. I reloaded the game and thankfully it fixed it, but it was a bizarre occurrence I am glad only happened once and didn’t block my progression.

I’ve mentioned it before, but Biomutant is a very visually pleasing game, with some gorgeous locations, creatures, and while many of them can often look oddly disturbing, like seriously, what is up with the Jagni Leader’s teeth, I adored much of what Biomutant has from a visual place. Fields are lush with flowing grass, the Tree of Life is huge at the center of the map, with its roots visible from almost anywhere you stand. While this is currently only available through backwards compatibility for the Series X/S and PS5, the game still looks and runs incredibly well, with only minor bouts of slowdown, and for reason, is only 1080p 60fps on PS5, upscaled to 4K, yet native 4K on Series X. This is likely the result of the small team being stretched too thin and unable to grasp the hardware at this time. It’s very likely we will see a native 4K patch address this as well as full next-gen support as well. My only complaint visually is some of the lighting can feel faked as you’ll notice pop-in of shadows and mood lighting switch back and forth as you move into and out of caves. This is most noticeable when you head into the cave at the base of the tree as it will look bright and illuminated until you enter it, and then the light shifts to being dark and moody.

Again, I wanted to love Biomutant, but I only just like it, and that’s unfortunate. I think the team has delivered what can be an engaging and massive-in-scale adventure, but it just crumbles under the weight of so many systems just not coming together as good as they could. The story is lacking, with a presentation that just sucks the charm and personality out of it as it relies far too much on a generic and often bland narration. I can see someone really getting into the narrator, and that’s perfectly fine, but the rinse and repeat dialogue and the abundance of fetch quests just tank the overall narrative to a point where I was completely disinterested in the how’s and why’s of what Biomutant had to offer. That said, I adore my little furry assassin, his weapons, armor, and skills make for some very enjoyable combat in a world I love to explore. As the Studio’s first game, I applaud what they were able to do, but sometimes ambition can bite you in the ass, just like a mutated creature looking to sink its teeth into you.

Developer - Experiment 101. Publisher - THQ Nordic. Released - May 25th, 2021. Available On - Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4/5, Windows. Rated - (T) Alcohol Reference, Blood, Crude Humor, Fantasy Violence, Use of Tobacco. Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X - No native Series X/S, PS5 version, but load times are quick. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.