The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - and while it fails to reach the lofty heights of its inspirations, it’s frequently absorbing and does stake a certain claim for itself. For players with a penchant for crafting looking for an irradiated post-apocalyptic smorgasbord of sights and sounds, Biomutant will undoubtedly hold some sway.
Character creation is first up and fairly swift, offering an anthropomorphic furball mammal with a range of different classes to choose. This origin is most reminiscent of the Dark Souls games, if only in the sense that it mainly dictates how the first handful of hours will go; any character class can quickly level-up to wield most any weapon and spell, so no one’s getting locked out of content by hasty decisions. The main difference in character creation a series of unlockable perks that are not interchangeable between classes.
The open-world leash slackens after a short tutorial & backstory section which introduces most of Biomutant’s basics. Players can then pick any direction and forge on ahead with fairly minimal gating, rummaging through wrecked villages, small war-pocked city remnants, caves filled with monsters and treasures, and more. ing this otherwise disconnected and damaged framework of civilization is a group of tribes claiming territory, one of which the player aligns with early on, though they are primarily similar in practice outside of their predisposed alignment (as well as a tribe-specific unlockable weapon).
That’s due to an “aura” alignment in Biomutant, a simplistic split between “light” and “dark” orientation. There are allusions to nuance, but it effectively boils down to “good” and “bad” choices to be made which changes up what NPCs blather to the main character. Weakening the already paper-thin aura system are a noxious pair of conscience imps who unskippably appear every time an aura decision is made, bickering between each other and coming off as less charismatic impressions of those found in Peter Molyneux's Black & White series of yore (or the alignment play in the original Fable). It’s mostly unnecessary, unsophisticated fluff.
Biomutant’s strengths ably fortify the lower-performing components. The open world exploration, for example, is an outright pleasure, where venturing off into previously darkened corners of the map almost always reveals unexpected vistas and piles of loot. Canyons yawn over tribal outposts nestled next to wrecked farmsteads, a nearby ice cave is packed with loot and bandits, and dangerous green-hued nuclear silos can be spotted from a hilly outlook crested in flowers. There’s bayous, island fortresses, massive dams and crumbling highways, upgrade stations floating on balloons, and large furry beasts surprising players on a casual nighttime stroll. Combining these sights with a fluid camera mode will inspire any video game shutterbugs, and Biomutant also happens to feature one of the most beautiful map screens in recent memory.
All in all, though, the world would be further improved with more inspired activities. The bulk of the game amounts to numerous fetch quests, brainless QTE busywork, and plentiful combat. Biomutant’s combat system features a half-dozen or so melee and ranged weapon types to play with, along with a few surprising tools and gadgets here and there. Each have a simple combo and a few more unlockable moves, as well as various stats and special features. The variety of enemies to be found in the game’s first few hours do not differ greatly from those in the following 40 and, while they do pose greater threat in numbers, there’s barely any mechanical challenge to be found in the hundreds of battles fought by game’s end. The four “world-eaters” do stand out as proper boss fights, but are more like isolated special encounters using unique mounts or vehicles than true tests of accumulated skill. Difficulty settings only affect damage and health bars, and the AI is average at best.
Fights lack impact and are functional but loose-feeling, yet immeasurably enhanced by Biomutant’s well-implemented crafting system. The game world is packed to the limit with various gun parts, melee components, and mods, some of which feature special qualities like radiation damage or fire unique projectiles. The RNG loot factor means most players will end up with a distinctive crafted armory, items whose stats can further evolve when applying resources at upgrade stations. The system is somewhat broken by Biomutant’s vulnerable game economy, easily manipulated by selling and scrapping a mountain of lootable vendor trash, but it allows for some groovy inventions. Even if it’s the twentieth time fighting an identical pack of mobs, there’s a satisfaction to trouncing them with a uniquely-modded two-handed irradiated carrot sword.
Biomutant leans heavily into its eco-epic story, which is also where its ever-present narrator enters the picture. That’s David Shaw Parker, an industry veteran who lends his talents to the game, albeit as the sole coherent voice. It’s a bold choice with wavering results, though it should be stated that his performance is generally excellent, if a little too precious. Nearly everything boasts an anachronistic goofy title: the past is the “Before-times” or the “Once-Was,” a record player is a “spiral groover,” a construction vehicle is a “Puttiupper.” It’s immediately tiring but rarely loathsome, yet even Shaw Parker’s confident delivery suffers when made to repeat phrases conspiratorially, such as “Just a few moves left, make them count” every single time the player engages a puzzle.
The rest of the NPCs employ sort of Animal Crossing-esque gibberish, which the narrator translates for the player in every conversation; the in-world justification is that the narrator is himself the embodied voice of the player’s Automaton, a tiny mechanical companion reminiscent of Link’s Navi. It’s unfortunate that there’s no way to just turn it off, however. A menu setting reduces the voiceover frequency, but it barely works, and there’s no way to silence it completely.
Biomutant appeals until credits roll largely thanks to its world and well-optimized visual performance on PC. There’s definitely too much fluff here, but there are more exciting surprises to unearth as the game goes on, including intriguing mounts and some esoteric devices. The story is considerably different than other recent light/dark/fate-of-the-world exercises, and, while it’s not the main attraction, it features charm, whimsy, and even a few poignant moments, even if the game's label of “kung-fu fable” seems a little lacking. Biomutant is the rare case where the lovely screenshots tell the full truth, though a more robust combat system could have made this a GOTY contender.
Biomutant releases on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on May 25. A digital PC code was provided to Screen Rant for the purpose of this review.
