
It’s something that only happened a handful of times but it was a baffling problem to have. I did find it extremely frustrating, however, whenever I’d backtrack over an invisible line during a combat encounter and the enemy I was fighting would break off their attack and have their health reset to full, regardless of how low it was. It’s extremely varied, too, from thick forest to scorching desert, and fluorescent radioactive zones to barren wastelands.īutton mashing is sufficient to a point but to execute cool combos and juggles a little more finesse is required. There’s a great sense of grand scale, particularly with things like the enormous Tree of Life and landmarks like collapsing bridges and a decaying dam. It’s a shame the missions and objectives feel stale so quickly because the world itself is very impressive. A lot of Biomutant is just collecting stuff, and collecting stuff just… isn’t that interesting after a while. Preparation for each boss tends to follow a consistent formula: gather a bunch of parts for a vehicle and catch five tiny creatures that you’ll later be able to launch at these bosses as distractions. The boss fights are identical whether you’re trying to stop them eating the Tree of Life or you’re trying to let them eat it they just come back to life and keep on munching, making the whole encounter pointless. I’ve worked for a peaceful tribe whose leader warned me against causing collateral damage and, in New Game +, an evil tribe who demanded mayhem, and the process involves lighting exactly the same amount of hay on fire.Īn even bigger letdown came later, as I began to tackle Biomutant’s four key ‘Worldeater’ bosses.
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You can only tackle them via a rigid series of encounters repeated from tribe to tribe and base to base whether you’re trying to unite the tribes or conquer them. There’s no real flexibility when it comes to conquering outposts – and invisible walls will stop you if you try to come at it from another angle. Either way, the enemy base conquest mission thread quickly unfurls to reveal that it’s largely just a series of repeated sequences and recycled vignettes. Choosing a tribe to ally with locks you into certain goals: uniting or conquering the tribes, and either saving the Tree of Life or letting it die. As a meathead with an aversion to magic I opted for a Commando build for a focus on firepower and ended up with a character that looked a bit like Sylvester Stallone’s cat after an exclusive diet of plutonium-laced Fancy Feast and Rambo movies – but if you want some kind of pink, warlock mouse, Biomutant has your back.Īfter it walked me through its linear intro and deposited me into the open world, Biomutant seems to spin its wheels a bit. Additionally, there are a bunch of available character classes that will define your avatar’s initial appearance. The clever character creation system is a bit like a genetic dartboard, automatically adjusting your hero’s appearance depending on what core stats you want to bolster before diving in. The first several hours are probably the worst offenders, even though it’s engaging at first.

The key disappointment is that the structure of the actual game that all these ingredients have been injected into is anything but unique, with objectives and tasks overtly recycled or riffed upon mission after mission. It’s certainly the only open-world post-post-apocalyptic kung fu action RPG starring anthropomorphic animals I’ve ever played.

To its credit, the way Biomutant fuses all its components together has resulted in something that is actually unique, at least broadly speaking. That last one is probably fairly self-explanatory. Horizon is far from the only influence on Biomutant, though, because it appears to scrape inspiration from a wide assortment of sources, from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s extreme temperature zones to the seemingly infinite array of weapon combinations of Borderlands, and from Devil May Cry’s cocktail of gun combat and hack ’n slash to… Kung Fu Panda. If you’re thinking that trekking around a vibrant and varied open world filled with strange creatures and primitive civilisations trying to stave off a second Armageddon sounds a little similar to Sony’s esteemed Horizon: Zero Dawn, you’re on the right track Horizon: Zero Dawn with rodents isn’t exactly the worst description for Biomutant.
