LLast year Biomutant was the first official release from the Swedish studio Experiment 101 and although it is led by notable talents who have previously worked on the just cause series, the game fell flat in a number of areas. Its few achievements with beautiful visuals, cool characters, and a charming aesthetic that blended playful whimsy with dark biotech were more or less negated by mediocre combat, boring quests, and a story that clearly bit more than it could chew. comfortably. Overall, the game was met with a resounding “meh” from most, while many more would fall either side of that lackluster sentiment depending on how lucky or unlucky they were with the unpredictable performance.
Worse still, following the story of Biomutant is a rather bland experience. Nothing really stands out as particularly bad, and no moment truly blows your mind. It’s all pretty rote and doesn’t change much to the range of decisions you make as you go along, which, with the grandeur and wealth of possibilities in the setting, is a rather disappointing reality. Besides choosing a general ideology and which tribe to favor at the start, most decisions in Biomutant will lead to roughly the same things. Lots of fights with other post-apocalyptic creatures and the redundantly structured missions come together pretty quickly and usually leave it up to you to introduce your own variety.
“Following the story of Biomutant is a rather bland experience. »
The occasional boss battles are probably the highlights of the combat side of the game, as these giant “World Eaters” are fun to take on and hold a few surprises. The RPG and customization side of things is similar to everything else in that it constantly reminds you of its potential with the sheer number of weapons and other items that can push your character in different directions, but rarely capitalizes on it all. with combat playing out largely the same throughout the majority of the game. Especially in the first third or so.
Biogenetics and psi powers mix things up nicely with a commendable variety on your side, but enemy attack patterns never really match you in that regard, and some combat visual effects can obscure the enemy too much, making them impossible. to anticipate their next move. Worse still, the camera still gets caught up in surrounding shrubbery more than it should, interfering with an already impaired combat experience. With so many other great games coming out in the last year, BiomutantThe moment in the spotlight was short-lived, and perhaps rightly so. It brought a lot of cool ideas to the table in terms of design, and later updates over the last year improved some areas noticeably, but ultimately Biomutant ends up offering only a few sparks of the roaring fire it could have been.
Now, with the native PS5 version in our hands, that seems like the big promise of Biomutant is a little closer to reality. The depth and richness of the game world is much easier to appreciate, as browsing it at a solid frame rate is undeniably charming most of the time. The variety of areas and characters you encounter makes the world feel like there’s almost something new to experience, despite the fact that most of these things are going to be surprisingly similar to one another. The graphics of Biomutant never really been a problem, but now that those consistently well-made textures and great lighting techniques are satisfied with equally solid performance and optimization, the game can convey its odd combination of cute weirdness and futurism. dystopian even more convincingly.
“You can almost feel the much more substantial PS5 brute pushing its way through the limitations of the last-gen version. »
You can almost feel the much more substantial PS5 brute pushing its way through the limitations of the last-gen version, and it even goes so far as to have three display modes; Quality mode that hits you with that sharp 4k with a frame rate capped at 30, performance that gives you 2k visuals at a pretty solid 60, and the much more compelling quality unlocked mode that tries – and succeeds generally – to have the best of both worlds with 4k resolution and an uncapped frame rate that seems to be at least 50 or 60 most of the time. With forced VRR enabled for my PS5 it’s even more stable, and to my eyes it seems like I can get over 60 at times. The bottom line is that it rarely dips into anything low enough to to be noticed, and that’s pretty cool for a game that just came out last year and looks as good as Biomutant Is. It doesn’t fundamentally fix the sometimes sloppy and often mediocre fights, but it smooths out the peaks and valleys of it and lets you see what it’s trying to do a little more clearly.
Attention has clearly been given to the PS5 in particular, as I’ve often noticed a clever implementation of DualSense through sounds and vibrations that reflect little things like the subtle mechanical crackle of an old movie projector , as well as some trigger resistance for shooting that makes the fight ho-hum a little more entertaining. Thanks to performance improvements, auto-locking during combat seems a little more useful now too, but not so much that I still don’t prefer using hard-locking with R3 most of the time. On top of everything, a free PS5 upgrade is available with a clean and simple way to transfer your PS4 save right from the main menu. That way, those who bought it early and maybe put it aside due to its disappointing condition, have no reason not to give it a second chance now. That is, unless your main problem with the game is its redundant and bland combat missions. These problems persist of course, because it is always the same Biomutant who took a few pieces for this last year.
“Now it’s a good-to-good game that can actually achieve what it’s trying to be and stand on its own two legs – for better or for worse – which is much better for biomutant, because it undeniably has some positives that are worth showing off. »
Originally released in questionable condition, this version of Biomutant seems serious enough to make up for that as much as possible. Besides revamping its core mechanics and overall gameplay, that’s about all that could have been done to resurrect Biomutantits long-term credibility and reputation. It’s a reasonably good game that will give plenty to looters and hardcore customizers. and the game clicks with them, but overall it’s still one of those games that insists on its timelessness on the surface despite never quite winning it. As it stands, it was a decent-to-good game with poor performance, which is a bad combination, as the few things that stand out will be hampered, causing the entire game to betray its few triumphs. But now it’s a good-to-good game that can actually achieve what it’s trying to be and stand on its own two legs – for better or for worse – which is a much better look for biomutant, because it undeniably has positive points that are worth showing.
This game was tested on the PlayStation 5.