What is Biomutant?
Biomutant sounds like a real mix of genres, in all the best ways. It is in development from Experiment 101 and is described as a “post-apocalyptic kung fu fable”, but it is also an open-world action RPG with a bit of martial arts, crafts, shooting, exploration and genetic mutation forever measure.
When is Biomutant released?
We now have a new release date for the Biomutant of May 25, 2021.
So, what is it about?
Although it has been in development for some time, Experiment 101 and THQ Nordic have remained silent about the new details. Here’s what we know for sure: it takes place in a post-apocalyptic universe where the New World is falling into chaos. A plague is spreading across the land. The Tree of Life, which represents the state of the world, is dying, bleeding from its roots. The New World Tribes are divided. In the middle of all this mess is your character, and it seems that the fate of the world will be in our hands: we can decide whether we will save it or help to end it, reunite the Tribes or bring them down, with a narrator narrating to the measure that we move forward. There are four massive roots of the Tree of Life that span the world, and at the end of each one expects a unique “world-eater” boss, all of whom, whether you decide to save the world or end it, need to be faced to advance your decision. So, pretty heavy stuff for your little fox-like character to deal with. Talking about…
How are we going to play?
I’ll be honest, I’m not 100% sure. I’ve been looking forward to Biomutant for some time now, and every time we hear something new, I get into a very serious debate with myself: is it a fox? A red panda? A raccoon? Who knows. Anyway, it doesn’t seem like initially seems to be extremely important, as character creation, personalization and genetic mutation seem to be a big part of the game.
Before you even get to things like skin and skin patterns, you start with an even deeper decision: your DNA. Creative director Stefan Ljungqvist talked to IGN about how you personalize your character from six different strands of DNA. You have six different tribes to choose from during the character creation process, but “it’s not like choosing between six characters, it’s like choosing between six strands of DNA and turning your own character … into those strands of DNA.” Each tribe has its own unique DNA chain, which you will adjust and customize further, and then go on to things like skin. The red panda-like creature that we see in trailers and marketing images is just the “avatar” for the “character version” of the developers, which explains why we see such a wide variety of different creatures in each trailer, and so different versions of that rodent-like protagonist.
It’s a “full-fledged RPG”, so its appearance will affect your stats, and you’ll start to get into it when you make your character. At the beginning, says Ljungqvist, the developers are “putting you in this decision: you are fast and agile, a smart mutant or a warrior or whatever.” In addition to all this, you also have the option to choose a class, which also can influence your initial weapon and equipment preferences. Ljungqvist’s example of one of the classes is a “Sai freak … more of his mutant X-Men style”, as a “magic user”.
On top of everything This one, you can also “recode” your genetic structure. Changing your genetic structure will again affect your appearance and attributes, while biocontamination in this post-apocalyptic world will also cause mutations like “Turtle shape” and “Mucus bubble”. As if that were not enough, the type of radioactivity that you will find in bunkers will introduce “psi-mutations” like telekinesis and levitation.
So, how are you going to play? Whatever your heart desires, I think.
How is the gameplay?
Biomutant will have a third-person combat martial arts style, with elements of shooting and melee, and any extra skills you learn from your mutations. Not all NPCs will be hostile, as you will also learn new ways and techniques when you meet Wung-Fu masters on your travels. We saw a variety of different enemy types in the various game and teaser trailers, so it looks like the combat can be quite varied. What is also intriguing is that the gameplay trailer below shows the main character appearing to make a deal with an ally to clean up a rival’s outpost. It was then shown that that rival had lost his outpost, with the information displayed that he now controlled two, not three. This rival and his outpost information were shown against a vague red background, and it is interesting to speculate on what this could mean: perhaps some kind of energy system, where you reduce the enemy’s control by attacking your fortresses?
Craftsmanship will also be an important part of the game. You will have great control over the manufacture of weapons. Ljungqvist says it is an expensive manufacturing system and that you can combine the pieces you have collected in search of “thousands of combinations”. Along with cutting and crushing weapons, rifles, shotguns and revolvers can have modifications such as chainsaw mods, contaminated mud flasks and more. We even saw a toothbrush gun. Some weapon parts are rarer and can also have different effects, such as changing your ammo. Other characters, however, can create more equipment for you, such as wings, or improve your automaton, which is described as your “scrap helper”.
Exploration will also be a fundamental part of the gameplay, and the creation system also applies here. You will be designing your equipment and equipment to deal with the varied world of Biomutant, making things like clothes, helmets, jackets and shoulder pads, but also more sophisticated things like gas masks, oxygen tanks and thermostat-resistant clothing. This leads us to …
How is the game world?
The open world of Biomutant seems quite wide and composed of several biomes. For example, we are told that we will use a wide variety of assemblies – some specific to certain areas – as well as jet skis, air balloons, submarines, mechanical overalls and other means of transportation to get around.
All of this craftsmanship is likely to be useful when dealing with the most dangerous side effects of a post-apocalyptic world. You will need the gas mask and oxygen tank to explore the dead zones, while thermo-resistant clothing will be useful for “cryonic” areas and heavier protective equipment can be used to deal with contaminated creatures. The world of Biomutant will be composed of an agonizing wilderness, as well as underground tunnels and bunkers, mountains, plains, the archipelago and forests. For the trailers and screens we’ve seen so far, it’s a very colorful place.
Where has Biomutant been?
Biomutant seems to have had a somewhat rough road. It was announced in 2017, and initially scheduled to be released in 2018. From then on, any news about the game was interspersed with some rather long silences. The first teaser trailer was released in early 2018, with Biomutant still expected to be released the same year. A few months later, however, the 2018 release date was changed to summer 2019, and a few months later, a short demo of the game was made available at PAX West 2018. After that, there was silence on the radio for a long time , leading to the fear that the game had been canceled entirely. A trailer for the 2019 collector’s edition raised hopes that we would see more about Biomutant soon, but it wasn’t until early 2020 when, after about a year of silence, developers shared an update that Biomutant was in the late stages of development. Then came another silence, interrupted when the occasional mention of Biomutant filtered from the meetings of the Embracer Group or the company THQ Nordic, until, finally, in the beginning of 2021, four years after the announcement of the game, we got the new release date: 25 of May.
Biomutant will be on Xbox Series X | S?
So far, Biomutant has just been confirmed for high-end consoles like the Xbox One. We haven’t heard about any Experiment 101 plans for a high-end version of the game yet, but maybe we’ll hear more after the May release. We will keep you informed.
Any news about Biomutor’s achievements?
Not yet, but we will update here as soon as we have them!
Biomutant sounds like a beautiful and extremely ambitious RPG. It’s hard to judge how much he can match those ambitions, as we haven’t seen any gameplay since the June 2020 trailer, which still seemed to be at the very beginning. However, along with the May 25 release date, confirmation came from the developers that we will hear more information in the coming weeks and months. We will do an update here whenever we get more details about the biomotor. What did you think of the game so far? Let us know in the comments!