opinion: Biomutant did rather poorly in tests and was then quickly forgotten. But Sascha always had a heart for the game.
About a year ago Biomutant was released and received a lot of criticism. On Metacritic there were some quite positive reviews, but many testers and users agreed that the game would probably not get a GotY edition. The GlobalESportNews test also turned out to be rather restrained with 68 points.
Okay, I understand. I probably wouldn’t declare Biomutant a masterpiece either. But honestly? I played through it on release and had a lot of fun with it, if only because it meets my taste in many aspects. Maybe it’s not exactly Breath of the Wild. Maybe it’s more like its wayward little cousin. But it’s grown on me and I stand by that.
Table of Contents
Biting through must be
Okay, pay attention. I love you guys, that’s why I don’t want to fuck with you here: The beginning of Biomutant sucks – but stay tuned, I promise! The narrator in the game babbles on far too often and with too much meaning, when the story is basically quite simple – humanity has abolished itself because of all the rubbish and pollution and stuff.
The last creatures on earth have all mutated and now you, as the player, fight either to unite all your fellow creatures, to preserve the world and let it heal itself, or to destroy all but the very strongest and trigger a global reset that cleans everything up. This makes the game feel very sluggish and drawn out.
And since I’m criticising anyway: Don’t expect Dark Souls (3) or Devil May Cry when it comes to the battle system. Biomutant is an AA game with AA animations, AA hit feedback and AA balancing. Every possible interpretation of “AA” applies here.
You also have to live with the fact that you may look like shit. I’m used to that in my RL anyway and don’t mind it, but sometimes you’ll find gear in the game that is so overpowered and looks so spectacularly stupid doing it that you’ll wish you had the wardrobe from Cyberpunk 2077 back, even without a working fly.
Oh, and did I mention that your choice of character stats directly affects your character’s appearance? For example, if you go all-in on intelligence, your hero will have a gigantic egghead, while particularly strong and enduring characters will be extra chunky.
My main character belongs to the second category. In the first hours of the game, you sometimes see your virtual parents in flashback sequences, whose appearance is also determined by the look of your character. Let me put it this way: My mother cracks coconuts with her thighs. She’s a huge animal! And in the game, too!
From lame to fun
Okay, why am I even doing this to myself? Aren’t there heaps of games similar to Biomutant that play better and don’t suffer from the points I criticised? Maybe. But none of them have mounts. Not like the ones in Biomutant. In this area the game has achieved nothing short of perfection. THIS IS MY FUCKING MOUNT AND I LOVE IT:
My mount in Biomutant looks like I’ve been gawking at Studio Ghibli movies for 24 hours straight, while eating three large pizzas and then having a nightmare come to life. It’s majestic and graceful. When I look at its face, I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or run away screaming and I do it all at once.
I’m totally into the art design, the completely surreal creatures and the great game world. Yes, I know, green grass, blue skies, post-post-apocalypse in Unreal Engine 4, that’s not how you attract the cool kids today. But I’m already happy when someone creates a damn game with the Unreal Engine and doesn’t just recreate some 20-year-old level or city from an existing title and slap it on YouTube.
I’m happy about the brightly coloured graffiti and advertising posters in the game. I like the villagers with their English teeth, beady eyes and KiK outfits. I like how my character chirps at each quick travel point so he can find it later. Maybe that’s why there’s no gender selection in character generation.
Everything is OP
Maybe it’s because I’m only playing on medium difficulty, maybe the maximum point distribution on strength and stamina is a bit broken, maybe more than 30 runs in Dark Souls just hardened me. But Biomutant seems relatively easy to me and I haven’t died once in combat in around ten hours of play so far.
It sounds dull, but I totally enjoy melee-knifing away enemies that are umpteen levels above me while watching cool bullet-time effects and finishers. Alternatively, I draw two pistols and simply shoot enemies over the head.
The time window for parries is very generous. Evasive manoeuvres consume so little stamina that you could in principle do away with the stamina bar altogether. For me, this makes the game a power fantasy in which I effortlessly wipe the floor with all enemies as a rambunctious mutant hamster and cut a damn fine figure in the process.
Would I put up with every game like this? Certainly not. But in Biomutant, the already rare brawls never become annoying or frustrating and are pleasantly fast-paced. If I really want to, I can always start a hard run-through.
I also like the crafting system. One of my “daggers” consists of a nail file, a banana and a screwdriver. I nailed a shuttlecock to my trousers as a protective leg plate.
Yes, you look like a walking rubbish dump. Disassembling equipment doesn’t always make sense (why do I get wood from a woolly hat?) and some kind of transmog system for visually customising clothes and upgrades would be great. In general, though, I think post-apocalyptic item recycling à la “this pasta strainer is now armour” is totally cool.
No, the end result never looks as awesome as in Mad Max or Fallout. But hey – you’re a mutant kung-fu squirrel preparing for the end of the world with the help of trash. In this setting, it makes perfect sense. You just have to be open to it.
Not always fighting
In the course of the game, you decide to form an alliance with one of several tribes in the game, which have different philosophies. For example, one of them wants to wipe out all other tribes and create a secure future where only the strong survive. Another tribe wants peace through the unification of all peoples, and so on. Okay, the four remaining factions in the game all just follow some nuance between these two basic attitudes, but they all come with a unique tribal weapon to unlock and their own costumes, some of which are really cool. A bit like the different gangs in The Warriors (1979, ask your grandparents).
No matter which side you choose, at some point you have to fight against hostile tribes and conquer their territory. A bit like the Stormcloaks and the Imperials in Skyrim, if you’ve ever heard of that niche game.
A few successful campaigns later, when I come face to face with the leader of an enemy clan and challenge him to the final boss fight, the game gives me the opportunity to dialogue. “Do you really want to mess with me, or maybe you’d rather take the chance of dying of natural causes one day, hopefully far away?”
My hero is so strong that all his muscles have their own six-pack. The head guy looks at me for a second and thinks to himself, “You know what? Boss fights are overrated anyway.” A moment later he shakes hands with the leader of my tribe and this part of the war ends without unnecessary bloodshed. Of course, I could have just flexed him away.
I’m also sure that this option is nothing mind-blowingly novel these days and exists like this in numerous other games. Still, I like the fact that in Biomutant I don’t have to ram everything and everyone mercilessly into the ground, when a short conversation sometimes helps as well. If only fee negotiations were that simple!
For Introverts
At the very beginning of the game, Biomutant presents you with a boss that wields some kind of giant morning star in its final stage. The animation for this is about as convincing as Nicolas Cage as Superman.
It also doesn’t help that this boss is basically child’s play and can’t hurt you at all as long as you attack his right knee. The tutorial requires you to flee from this overpowering danger because it’s in the script. Like I said, tough game entry, not a wildly convincing first impression and all.
Later bosses are really spectacular. One of them swallows you, for example, so that you not only get a great inside perspective, but also get to the only vulnerable spots of the boss.
It gets difficult when he eliminates you sooner or later and you have to go back into the boss. Depending on which end you hit, you might be … well, screwed. This can happen in boss fights, but rarely so literally.
Also creative and fortunately disgusting in a different way are fights in oil-infested areas, where you fight against pitch-black creatures smeared all over with oil. You quickly wish for the return of the cuddly raccoons, squirrels and hamsters from before. They, in turn, not only come in all imaginable colours, shapes and sizes, but also wear completely different tribal clothing, depending on which clan they belong to. I love the variety of enemies, boss monsters and mounts.
A game like McDonald’s
For my relationship with Biomutant, the term “Guilty Pleasure exists in England.” It’s something you enjoy, even if you know it’s not actually that good. For some people, it’s flicks like “Birdemic” or “Sharknado” or the indescribably bad films by and with Neil Breen. For others, it’s the 20-pack of Chicken McNuggets or the can of Pringles you shove across your face. For me, it’s just Biomutant.
Yes, the game would be 100 percent better immediately without the narrator and all the unnecessary rambling. The battle system and some of the animations would have to go back in the oven for a while, because nothing is really cooked yet. It would also be totally super if certain character values or equipment didn’t necessarily lead to an indescribably ugly main character.
But I immediately grew fond of the totally weird creatures in the game, from simple enemies to disgusting boss monsters and mounts. I like the totally abstruse crafting system, where any everyday item, no matter how mundane, can become equipment. I enjoy the fact that while I can effortlessly wipe the floor with most enemies, I can also simply show mercy when in doubt. Yes, the puzzles are child’s play and don’t keep me from lopping and looting for too long – thank goodness!
I know Biomutant isn’t a blockbuster and it’s not guaranteed to clear any more awards this year. I just don’t care at all because it hits my taste to a tee with its humour and art style. It’s okay to like things that, objectively speaking, might not be all that great. If they ever bring it to Nintendo Switch, I’ll get it again.
How do you guys handle ratings? Do you not even touch games below a certain minimum rating? Or do you perhaps have favourite games that aren’t objectively very good? And what do you think of Biomutant? Let me know in the comments
