Biomutant Review

Biomutant is the debut title from Experiment 101, a Swedish company recently acquired by THQ Nordic. It is a Kung-Fu, or Wung-Fu, styled RPG that mixes hand-to-hand combat with shooting in a future world where humans have caused their own extinction that leads to the evolution, and radioactive mutation of animal life. There are two main parts to this game, defeat the 4 World Eaters that are destroying the Tree of Life at its roots, and end the Tribe War. The game is roughly 12 hours long, depending on how much time you want to spend in the world, but is all of that worth it, or is your money and time better off spent somewhere else?

Character and Setting:

To kick things off, let’s start where the game begins. The character design in this game is pretty decent for a AA game. There are six different breeds to choose from, each with a different style of gameplay. Further, you are able to decide the size of your breed depending on how you want your skill points to be set. For example, if you want your character to have more Intellect, it’s head will be bigger. There is also an entire color pallet to choose from and multiple different breed designs. It’s not the most in-depth character design that I’ve seen, but for a AA title and the small size of the studio, I would say it’s impressive.

Even more impressive is the world of Biomutant. I was instantly mesmerized with how beautiful the game looked on my PS5 (didn’t mean to flex). The game takes place in a post-apocalyptic version of Earth where humans have caused their own extinction due to pollution. There are 8 different biomes with 5 different hazard zones (such as heat, cold, radioactive, etc); all of which your mutant can earn resistance to through Bio Points that are scattered around the map. Despite the size of the map, the game does get to a point where it all starts to feel empty. There is so much to explore in Biomutant, but there is also so little in these locations. Of course, there are abandoned houses and buildings to explore, each with some enemies to fight off and loot to be earned, but the game was lacking in NPCs. Besides the 16 supporting characters in the game, there are not many other random NPCs walking around this vast wasteland. This was a little disappointing to say the least, but the game does make up for it in other aspects.

The NPCs and Narrator

As for the NPCs in the game, there are two types. The NPCs that help you in your journey of defeating the World Eaters, and the different tribe leaders, or Sifu’s. Each of these NPCs all have different unique tasks for you to complete in order to get parts for various inventions that will help take down the World Eaters. As it is with this game, though, things start to get repetitive. Even though the missions are different, they all start to have the same feel and the game starts to become a “go here and find this” and “talk to this person and get that,” type of game. It doesn’t get to the point of not wanting to complete the game, it just starts to feel a little stale.

However, the thing that caused annoyance from me is that all of them speak an animal language and the game is constantly being narrated to you; think Little Big Planet, but far more frequently. I really liked the narrator’s inclusion for a good portion of the game, but after a while I started to wish there were some voice actors. It makes sense due to the small studio making the game and probably not the biggest budget, but I think voice actors could have pushed this game further. Thankfully, the developers put in an update where you can make the narrator speak as little as possible. There is also something to say about the sometimes philosophical nature of the narrator and other times very childish nature. I give this game a pass on that, though, because this is a world where animals are creating names for human inventions, sort of like in The Little Mermaid.

The Tribe War, The World Eaters, and Combat

One of the main goals in Biomutant is to end the Tribe war. There are two ways this can be done. If you choose to be good, you can unite the tribes, if you choose to be bad, you can destroy the tribes. There are six tribes in total, all with their own unique look and affiliation with light or dark, or both; and each with their own unique weapon you get after defeating them. I enjoyed this part of the game, but if you’re playing to achieve Maximum Light, it gets cut short. After getting two tribes to surrender, the other three tribes followed suit, which left me underwhelmed. I was really looking forward to getting to fight the other three tribes and exploring their forts. Now, that doesn't mean that you still can’t go to their fort, but the missions where you take over the fort was part of the fun.

This game also had great design in regards to its enemies. The main bosses in the game were called the World Eaters, and each massive creature had its own different look and way of being defeated. Depending on the loot you had and how much you leveled up before fighting them resulted in how easy or difficult it was to beat them. Further, the boss fights weren’t all too incredible and they got much easier later on in the game. Even though each fight had its own unique way of completion, the lack of difficulty made it feel like another mini boss. So, if you’re into boss fights like in God of War or Dark Souls, don’t expect to be too impressed by them here.

As for defeating these enemies, I found myself enjoying the combat. The mixture of Wung-Fu with shooting seemed special to me and I don’t know many games that have done that. There are multiple combinations that you can do that, when you do three different moves, earn you Special Wung-Fu. This causes enemies to freeze while you absolutely obliterate them. I will say, I did find myself using my rifle far more than hand-to-hand combat. This could’ve been avoided if there were more enemies that couldn’t be defeated with gunpowder. You also start to feel overpowered later on in the game and enemies that should be harder to defeat, actually feel easier. If you’re into that, the game will be a joy, but, if you like a little more of a challenge as you progress, you will be let down.

Crafting, Looting, and Skills:

That brings me to the looting in the game… There is a lot of looting in this game. It got to the point where I stopped looking at the loot I got unless it was gold rarity or better, and even then, unless it was armor, I didn’t care to look at it. The way looting works in the game is you fight some enemies in a location, and then you walk around the area to find crates, garbage cans, dumpster, refrigerators, drawers, lockers... you get the idea, there’s loot everywhere. This was overwhelming at first, as I had no idea what to do with the loot, but once you get into the swing of things and learn what’s good and what’s not (hint: electricity is amazing), it’s much easier to manage. I did find myself to be overpowered by around level 20 (I ended the game level 28) and everything else I found was basically just scrapped for parts. This definitely stopped me from looting later on in the game because everything I would get was much worse than I had so it became a big waste of time. However, I did loot at every chance I got throughout the game so that could be the reason. Regardless of all of this, the loot is super cool and you will not be disappointed in what you may find. From whacky helmets that look like a rabbit to badass gun and sword parts, there’s something for everyone.

Crafting is also a big part of this game. You use what you looted to craft better add-ons for your outfits and weapons. This part was also a bit overwhelming at first, but once I got the hang of it, it was pretty fun. The add-ons are helpful but don’t really make you look much better, but the weapon crafting is what really makes the game pop. You can make some gnarly swords and guns that just mow through enemies in the game. Again, if you loot a lot early on like I did, you’re going to get to a point later on where nothing you get is better than what you already have.

There is no skill tree system in this game, which is atypical of an RPG, but there are multiple ways to upgrade your character. Each time you level up, you get to choose whether to upgrade your Intellect, Agility, Vitality, Strength, etc. Furthermore, there are three different types of points you can find along the way. PSI Points, Bio Points, and Upgrade Points. Each has its own unique thing to upgrade in the game, such as character moves, hazard resistance, and perks. Some of these points are earned through puzzles, which also are unique at first, but become boring and repetitive early on. Moreover, you are allowed 4 unique special moves in the game and I did not find myself using them often; I actually completely forgot they existed. I would’ve liked the game to put a little more consideration into these moves because I did not find them as useful as just using my overpowered rifle.

Aura:

Like most RPGs the game includes a karma system; in this game it’s called your Aura. Depending on how you choose to play the game, you can either be Maximum Light, Maximum Dark, Somewhat Light, or Somewhat Dark. Regardless of this, there are only two endings in the game, a good one and a bad one. I finished off the game with around 80 Light Points and 0 Dark Points (I did reload save points when I would make a mistake and accidentally get a Dark Point). Biomutant also includes these two little axolotl looking angels and demons that play as your conscious, and have some good banter with every choice that you make. Again, the dialogue does get repetitive, but keep in mind you get one point for every choice, and I had 80 points (If I’m remembering correctly, there are 20 different dialogue interactions these characters can have with each other).

Final Verdict:

Overall, I was in the boat of people who enjoyed Biomutant. Before even playing this game I took into account that this is the studio’s first game and there were only 25 people working on the project. I think that this game was poorly marketed as a AAA game when it was in fact a AA game. Therefore, if you go into the game with the expectation that this is an indie game, I think you will be pleasantly surprised and actually impressed with the gorgeous world that Biomutant created. Also, if you’re into commentaries on climate change and pollution I think you’ll also find yourself enjoying the plot of Biomutant. However, if you’re looking for the next best RPG like Horizon Zero Dawn, you will be disappointed. I was extremely excited for Biomutant when it finally came out, and the story, characters, and art style were all enough for me to let it’s other missteps and repetitiveness get a pass and earn a 7/10.