Biomutant - Review
The Tree of Life is dying. What was once protecting all is now withering and fading. Welcome to Biomutant.
Biomutant is the passion project from THQ Nordic. A game many years in production. An open-world, post-apocalyptic Kung-Fu RPG, and as wild a chaotic of a description that sounds, is exactly what Biomutant is.
Biomutant feels like giving the same prompt to 20 different writers and telling them to go wild. A child with multiple toys sitting in a bathtub smashing them together and creating a story. It goes in so many different directions, and it does okay in most of them, but it’s nothing great. Offensively average; is the way I’ve come to describe the game. Offensively average for a game that has been in development for this long. Offensively average for something that had it released 10 years ago, would’ve been an innovator, but is now just fitting the mould.
Biomutant doesn’t do anything particularly wrong, it’s a fundamentally solid game. The combat feels nice, if a little flighty. The world looks great, if a little dated. The story is solid, if not a little basic. It doesn’t offend on any one point in particular, but it fails to be exemplary in any area that it is overall offensively average. Let’s break it down a little bit further to understand.
Let’s start out with some good points. The game is fun, there is no doubt about it. The game is entirely enjoyable, and I found myself easily sinking hours at a time into it. The combat, even on hard, isn’t particularly difficult. It’s somewhat flighty at times, but it feels good. Bouncing around and knocking enemies into the air, shooting and rolling. It’s fun, it’s fun to play without being particularly demanding. Unfortunately, aside from the uniquely designed bossfights, the general combat is incredibly repetitive. Go here, fight 10 or so normal enemies with one larger “miniboss” enemy. Collect items or release an NPC, go to the next location and do the same. There is truly little mix-up of this considerably basic concept. It’s almost like playing an MMORPG, but you’re by yourself.
Funnily enough, as I was moving from location to location, getting on my mount and doing these rinse & repeat sections the idea sat in my head often. “Wow, this would be a great concept for an Action MMORPG.” The game itself almost feels like a concept demo for a potential MMORPG. Just a quick side note.
Problematically with these open-world RPGs is this idea of side-quests are go here, get item, go here and get item. There is a few unique side-quests throughout the game, mainly related to unlocking NPCs for cosmetic changes, or getting keys to get into special areas. These however felt like they only really contributed to about a 1/5th of the actual side-quests available in the game. The bulk of these quests consist of going to a location, doing a few incredibly simple dial turning puzzles, fighting a few enemy groups and then releasing an NPC that you react to either get light or dark points. This concept is repeated across the entirety of the game, and realistically probably buffers a good 15 to 20 hours of gameplay. If there was more unique nature to the side-quests they’d be enjoyable. But they feel little more than a MMORPG collect quest, or mob grind quest.
The crafting of the game is incredibly well done. This in particular is the one section of the game that appears to work really well. It is nothing particularly unique, but it feels like it should. I was hesitant at first, as it didn’t really make sense to me in the tutorial section. But after modifying just a single weapon, it made sense. My first creation was a two-handed hammer, and my final creation was a giant flaming death blade with sawblades and metal attached to it. You know, the kind of weapon you would expect in a Kung-Fu RPG. The armour crafting is little more than adding addons to gear that you find in the world, but they are visually recognisable on your character model, which is quite a nice touch. If they had spent more focus on crafting, and reduced some time on things like mounts, or the amount of turn dial puzzles, they probably could’ve made this the major selling point of their game.
The story is a little bit all over the place. Your family is killed by the meat eater called Lupa-Lupin. You’ve lost your memory however, so you don’t actually remember that until a wheelchair bound character called “Out-of-date” because he is the old man version of “Best-Before” reminds him. He then tells you the world tree is dying, and you should do something about that before you even think of getting revenge on the creature that killed your family. You then join a clan, help them to conquer a few other clans. Whilst this is happening, there is 4 huge creatures you also need to kill because they are eating the world tree and causing it to die. Once you’ve dealt with the conquering, the rest of the clans give up, because why wouldn’t they? Oh, and then you go to the tree of life and SURPRISE, now you get to fight Lupa-Lupin, but you haven’t saved the world yet, you’re only halfway there. Do you follow?
There is too many things happening and they do not really link up at all. If I wanted my revenge, why would I help clans conquer other clans, that is in no way related to killing the worldeaters? If I wanted to save the tree, why don’t I just kill the worldeaters? Better yet, why don’t get my revenge at the end of the game, instead of halfway through it? There is some really bizarre story pacing decisions and incredibly bizarre direction decisions. The story itself is fine, but there is no focus.
There is so many other things I can talk about. The biomutation powers, that I only ever used the first 2 of. The psi-power upgrades you get when levelling, that I don’t think I ever noticed actually impact the game. The incessant nattering of the narrator, who despite being a beloved voice, being the only voice in the whole damn game is frustrating. There are some good concepts here, and there are some bad ones. There is lots of ambition, but too much of it. There are mounts that you can get, which don’t feel useful because they seem to be slower than my character’s actual run speed. The world is vast and beautiful, but I hate that it’s filled with uninspired side quests and the same enemy models over and over.
Biomutant is a game that has been in development for the better part of a decade, and still feels rushed. The end product is enjoyable in short bursts but it’s not something I will enjoyably pick up again. There is so many things that are okay or simply good with the game, but there is nothing that is great. The game is, offensively average. It’s a passion project, that would have benefited from external oversight to reign in the wild optimism of the team. Someone to analyse and say “do we really need this? Can we change this?” Biomutant is good, but it’s not great.
The Score
6.5
Review code provided by THQ Nordic
The Pros
+Wide variety of crafted equipment
+Combat feels good
+Beautiful world design
The Cons
+Storyline has no focus
+Narrator never stops talking
+Lots of useless features
+Lack of enemy variety
