Biomutant was not worth the wait.

CriticalGaming

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Biomutant was a game that I had completely forgotten was even a thing, and when the game started appearing on my feed within the last week or so, I seem to remember thinking it was some kind of survival/shooter game of some kind. It's weird because it was a game that I vaguely recall seeing some underwhelming announcement about, then forgetting about until this week. Well apparently the game has had some hype around it for some reason, maybe the furry-culture folks are just desperate for something to replace the lack of Sonic games.

Anyway Biomutant is a Ubisoft-game. Except it's not made by Ubisoft, and it shows.

We all know what Ubisoft games are at this point right? Open world check-list games that usually have a decent core loop that will either click with you enough to get through it, or be fun for a 10-20 hours before dropped forever. An to their credit Ubisoft has nailed the open-world formula at this point, most games in their wheelhouse are decent enough when they come out.

Biomutant is that Ubisoft formula, but done terribly. The world is empty, the combat sucks, there is practically no sound and what sound there is sucks. Biomutant feels like a game that's still in Beta. Like the core of the game is there, but much of what should be in the game is simply missing. Things like world events, polish, filler, those things that make a game more than a large empty map you run around in.


It's a beautiful game, and if the gameplay was there to support that large beautiful world, Biomutant could be an amazing experience. Instead it's just a waste of time. Most quests are mundane boring fetch quests that have you run to extremely fair points on the map for nothing. And because the open world is so empty you'll never come across those open world events or distractions that make open-world games great. We've all had that open-world experience where you are traveling along to a mission or something, when all of a sudden you encounter a bandit camp, or a person in distress, or a robbery, or a cool thing to loot and discover. Biomutant has none of that.

For those of you that remember, I complained that Ghosts of Tsushima's world was beautiful but too static to be truly great. The lack of roaming Mongols made the travel in Ghosts lackluster in my eyes, because everything was on the map for you so there was never a reason to explore. Biomutant makes Ghosts look busy. Because Ghosts still had no lack of shrines, hot springs, fox dens, bamboo challenges, bandit bases, villages, side-quests, haikus, tons of stuff to do even if you didn't have to explore to find it. Biomutant has....nothing.

It leave me believing that the game is just a very very polished Beta. It works, it runs well, but it lacks some of the basic things that make a game feel complete.



 

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I had little interest in Biomutant, but sucks the game is this current state. Another game rushed out the door and needs a bunch of patches to be the state it should have been in the first place. I remember this game getting announced all the way back in 2017. So it's been the oven for far too long and in an inexcusable state.
 

meiam

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Yeah been looking at review and most of them are around the "meh" line (except rpgfan.com, but those guy are always super positive about everything). It's a shame, feel like a small studio bit more than they could chew. It sounds like they should have gave up on the open world aspect and instead made multiple small area (maybe interconnect them a la dark soul) and cut down on most quest.

I played assasin creed odyssey not too long and it felt like a game that was less than the sum of it's part, so much effort went into it and it just doesn't really work because all the element feel like they were made by individual part of the studio with no idea what the other part were doing and then they duck taped everything together at the last minute and everything clash. I was hoping a smaller studio could avoid that issue. It really feel like open world game are due for some new game that push the genre forward by introducing new element (think Halo did for FPS) and I was hoping a small new team would try to compensate their lack of resource with clever/risky game design. Guess they didn't go that way, wonder if they just ran out of cash and had to push it out the door.
 

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Something about the ads for this game put me off from the get-go, though I was never able to put a finger on it. I have to agree with SkillUp- that sound design is atrocious. I don't expect a small studio to be able to tour the world for sound samples, but a giant creature landing in a lake shouldn't sound like someone dropping a deuce.
 

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I'd had half an ear out for the development of this off and on over the years and it was one of those things where development stopped and started a few times, like they had a good idea for the world building/story, but something was going sideways in development like maybe nobody was really at the helm. Some of the early release stuff looked...very unpolished. Based on what came out of the reviews I kinda get the actual finished product and testing was thrown together in the last year or two. You think of triple A stuff and 12-18 months sounds doable but this is apparently a very small studio with a pretty questionable management strategy. It's a shame because the general consensus is that the "idea" is great, but its actually gameplay isn't particular interesting. I'm just crystal balling it though.

Something about the ads for this game put me off from the get-go, though I was never able to put a finger on it. I have to agree with SkillUp- that sound design is atrocious. I don't expect a small studio to be able to tour the world for sound samples, but a giant creature landing in a lake shouldn't sound like someone dropping a deuce.
Yeah the first couple trailers looked....very rough.
 
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It's a shame, because I was really hoping the combat at least would be good.

I haven't kept up with the development of the game, but I remember initially they wanted the combat to have a Devil May Cry kind of feel, but in an open world game, which I would have really dug. I guess they didn't nail it. To be fair though, there's less than a handful of developers that can actually nail the feel of a good character action game.
 

sXeth

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Everything I've seen, and the one person I know who've played it seems pretty aligned in that.... well the ambition was there. Theres a lot of cool concepts in stuff like the crafting/modding, the level system etc. But there just isn't enough.... game beyond that.


Seems to be another case where a smaller dev (20 person team, I believe I read) is trying to take a swing at the AAA style, but you really can't pull that off on a simple logistical basis, even with the all the ideas in the world.
 

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I noticed this a while back and was keeping one eye out to see if it would be worth getting. So far reviews are pretty much all along the lines of "There's a lot of stuff here but it's rather messy in execution". So definite pass.
 

Gordon_4

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Yeah been looking at review and most of them are around the "meh" line (except rpgfan.com, but those guy are always super positive about everything). It's a shame, feel like a small studio bit more than they could chew. It sounds like they should have gave up on the open world aspect and instead made multiple small area (maybe interconnect them a la dark soul) and cut down on most quest.

I played assasin creed odyssey not too long and it felt like a game that was less than the sum of it's part, so much effort went into it and it just doesn't really work because all the element feel like they were made by individual part of the studio with no idea what the other part were doing and then they duck taped everything together at the last minute and everything clash. I was hoping a smaller studio could avoid that issue. It really feel like open world game are due for some new game that push the genre forward by introducing new element (think Halo did for FPS) and I was hoping a small new team would try to compensate their lack of resource with clever/risky game design. Guess they didn't go that way, wonder if they just ran out of cash and had to push it out the door.
All Halo did for my money was reduce the FPS ability to be interesting for almost two decades.
 
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laggyteabag

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Its always a shame when a small-studio's project comes out as a bit of a dud - especially when it takes as long to develop, as this has.
 

CriticalGaming

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Its always a shame when a small-studio's project comes out as a bit of a dud - especially when it takes as long to develop, as this has.
Kind of reminds me of No Man's Sky. Although Biomutant didnt make as many false promises.

There is a chance that the dev team takes the feedback from these reviews and works to fix them over the course of a year or so to make the game good. However seeing as this is an EA published title.....i doubt they'll get the chance.
 
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laggyteabag

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Kind of reminds me of No Man's Sky. Although Biomutant didnt make as many false promises.

There is a chance that the dev team takes the feedback from these reviews and works to fix them over the course of a year or so to make the game good. However seeing as this is an EA published title.....i doubt they'll get the chance.
Firstly, the game wasn't published by EA? So far as I can tell, it was THQ Nordic - who acquired the development studio in 2017.

As for the game's post-launch support... I suppose it really depends on the how well the game fares, commercially.

If the game sells about as poorly as the game has been reviewed, then I wouldn't expect more than some bug fixes, and maybe a fix to whatever it is that is causing the sound issues.

If the game sold well, I guess it depends on how much THQ feels like they can invest in continued development, but even so, I wouldn't expect anything close to a No Man's Sky overhaul.

I would wager that the only reason why No Man's Sky's post-launch development has been as good as it has been, is because the game both raked in boatloads of cash during launch, and because the studio is independent.

Unfortunately in this case, I don't think that the game is going to sell particularly well, so I wouldn't be surprised if the game only saw a few fixes, before the studio is moved on to their next project.

Hopefully they can learn from this game.
 
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CriticalGaming

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Firstly, the game wasn't published by EA? So far as I can tell, it was THQ Nordic - who acquired the development studio in 2017.

As for the game's post-launch support... I suppose it really depends on the how well the game fares, commercially.

If the game sells about as poorly as the game has been reviewed, then I wouldn't expect more than some bug fixes, and maybe a fix to whatever it is that is causing the sound issues.

If the game sold well, I guess it depends on how much THQ feels like they can invest in continued development, but even so, I wouldn't expect anything close to a No Man's Sky overhaul.

I would wager that the only reason why No Man's Sky's post-launch development has been as good as it has been, is because the game both raked in boatloads of cash during launch, and because the studio is independent.

Unfortunately in this case, I don't think that the game is going to sell particularly well, so I wouldn't be surprised if the game only saw a few fixes, before the studio is moved on to their next project.

Hopefully they can learn from this game.
I assumed EA had some involvement because the game is free on EA premium pass.
 

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Think I may have obtained significant brain damage as reading all the middling reviews compelled me to get it. Something about stumbling head-first over one's ambition just make me wanna go pick it up and pet it on the head and say "aw, no worry, you trying your best...why do we fall, mastah Brucey Biomutant?" And then we hug and bond over past trauma or something. So yeah, probably brain damage.
 
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happyninja42

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Think I may have obtained significant brain damage as reading all the middling reviews compelled me to get it. Something about stumbling head-first over one's ambition just make me wanna go pick it up and pet it on the head and say "aw, no worry, you trying your best...why do we fall, mastah Brucey Biomutant?" And then we hug and bond over past trauma or something. So yeah, probably brain damage.
I'm not willing to fork over $60 to give someone a pat on the head. That's my one big issue with the dev of Days Gone saying "Buy games at full price if you want them to make more." Well, ok man, if you can somehow mandate that every game that CHARGES me $60 meets at least some base standard of quality and functionality, then I might be willing to be more cavalier with my budget. However, given how shitty the majority of titles are at release, and I'm just supposed to suck it up and bite the monetary bullet, and HOPE they bother to make it worth my money later, I'm not going to do it. Sorry.

So a game that is "just ok, but fails at doing any of it's many things well." Well, sorry, better luck next time I guess, you won't be getting my cash.
 

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Think I may have obtained significant brain damage as reading all the middling reviews compelled me to get it. Something about stumbling head-first over one's ambition just make me wanna go pick it up and pet it on the head and say "aw, no worry, you trying your best...why do we fall, mastah Brucey Biomutant?" And then we hug and bond over past trauma or something. So yeah, probably brain damage.
No, you listen to your heart. You went against the grain and decided for yourself. That is the heart of a true gamer.
 

Dalisclock

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Think I may have obtained significant brain damage as reading all the middling reviews compelled me to get it. Something about stumbling head-first over one's ambition just make me wanna go pick it up and pet it on the head and say "aw, no worry, you trying your best...why do we fall, mastah Brucey Biomutant?" And then we hug and bond over past trauma or something. So yeah, probably brain damage.
I mean, honestly, I get where you're coming from. Every so often I grab a game that looks interesting even if the reviews are mixed because there's just enough there to convince me to give it a shot, and sometimes I've scored with those while just as often I've been disappointed. So it is a gamble but you occasionally find an overlooked gem that way.

Off the top of my head, I've discovered EVOLAND 2, Expeditions: Conquistador and Syberia this way.
 
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Dalisclock

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Kind of reminds me of No Man's Sky. Although Biomutant didnt make as many false promises.

There is a chance that the dev team takes the feedback from these reviews and works to fix them over the course of a year or so to make the game good. However seeing as this is an EA published title.....i doubt they'll get the chance.
I was wondering that myself. If it's something that can be made better with a years or so worth of hard work and improvement or if the whole thing is screwed from a design standpoint. NMS ended up being this wierd example of a Dev Team works hard to patch the game up to what it should have been all along instead of just letting it twist in the wind after release but most games aren't going to end up like that, and it doesn't work if the problems are systemic in nature where the entire game needs to be overhauled and rebuilt to fix it.
 
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CriticalGaming

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Think I may have obtained significant brain damage as reading all the middling reviews compelled me to get it. Something about stumbling head-first over one's ambition just make me wanna go pick it up and pet it on the head and say "aw, no worry, you trying your best...why do we fall, mastah Brucey Biomutant?" And then we hug and bond over past trauma or something. So yeah, probably brain damage.
i have bought several games based on their reputation for being bad games. Ride to Hell, No Man's Sky at launch, sometimes you can't help but see the trainwreck for yourself.
 
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CriticalGaming

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I was wondering that myself. If it's something that can be made better with a years or so worth of hard work and improvement or if the whole thing is screwed from a design standpoint. NMS ended up being this wierd example of a Dev Team works hard to patch the game up to what it should have been all along instead of just letting it twist in the wind after release but most games aren't going to end up like that, and it doesn't work if the problems are systemic in nature where the entire game needs to be overhauled and rebuilt to fix it.
To Biomutant's credit, the game isn't fundamentally fucked. It's not like the elements here don't work, they do, it's just that the glue that pieces everything together is missing.

So I think with some time and patching certain issues out, they could make this game a much more enjoyable experience. This isn't Cyberpunk where everything is buggy and broken.

Biomutant is missing sound effects, it's missing filler enemies, and it's combat needs polish. But what is there does work, so I think it is entirely fixable.