Playing through the short, 25-minute demo of the newly-announced BioMutant and speaking with the team from Experiment 101 (founded by former-Avalanche Studios talent who worked on Just Cause and Mad Max) left me thinking that the game has the potential to be something special.
A hybrid of Journey to the West, old kung fu movies, and a post-apocalyptic tale starring all sorts of fuzzy critters, BioMutant immediately stands out as something that’s just different. From the outset, we had the ability to customize our Rocket Raccoon-esque hero in a wealth of ways. Want a tall, thin, green stick of a warrior? How about a stout purple beast that kinda looks like the Cheshire Cat? From moment one, BioMutant gives you the keys to the kingdom, and the freedom to craft whatever kind of hero you want, gender included.
CHECK OUT 25 MINUTES OF BIOMUTANT GAMEPLAY BELOW
Once I had my lean, blue raspberry bubble gum-colored creature created, the following series of rooms acted as a sort of appetizer platter for the type of gameplay we can expect from BioMutant. The core combat lies in melee, ranged, and elemental attacks. Swinging my oversized sword and executing combos felt solid, if a little heavy on the button mashing. Gun combat took a page from John Woo films, with my creature soaring through the air in slow motion as he (it?) rained a flood of bullets on my enemies. And throughout the demo, I got a series of elemental powers with individual cool downs. I could send a swarm of moths at my enemies to keep them distracted, or shoot out a stream of electricity, frying anything in my path. My personal favorite involved creating mushrooms from thin air that could act as a trampoline and really open up the exploration.
The demo also showed hints of the game’s RPG elements in the form of dialogue trees, quest givers, and weapon customization. This final one was exciting – I came across a tinkerer of sorts, who took me inside of his workshop. I went over to his table, and began fiddling with the appearance and properties of my sword. Hitting a randomize button cycled through a huge array of weapons, from traditional blades to something that more closely resembled a pipe ripped straight out of a wall. Again, all of this player-choice feeds in to the feeling that everyone's BioMutant adventure will feel uniquely like their own.
The corridor-heavy demo ended with our hero finally making his way out of the sewers and into the lush green jungles of the open world, only to come face-to-face with a massive beast who seemed to have dinner on its mind. This promise of a much larger world filled with freedom and all sorts of creatures who want us dead is exciting to say the least.
While the short demo was relatively simplistic, it was through speaking with the developers at Experiment 101 where BioMutant’s potential truly shined through. As you’d expect from a game from the minds of former Just Cause developers, BioMutant’s open world is going to be filled with all sorts of strange vehicles. We’ll be able to skirt around an archipelago on a jet ski, soar over canyons in a hot air balloon, and even skitter across the world on the back of giant severed mechanical hand. All of these elements existing in the same world reminded me of how I used to dump my toy box out as a kid, with stuff from Star Wars, X-Men, and G.I. Joe all existing alongside one-another.
You can choose to save the tree of life, or watch the world crumble before you.
Being an open-world RPG, BioMutant will give us freedom not only in how we traverse the world and engage in quests, but also how we shape the future of this world. Post-apocalyptic isn’t quite the right word for this world – rather, it’s more “mid-apocalyptic.” There’s a tree of life at the center of BioMutant, and it’s dying. As you progress through the story, you encounter a handful of tribe leaders who range from benevolent to sheer-evil, and with that, you’re given the choice whether to side with them, or imprison them. Like the Fable trilogy or a BioWare game, every action in this game has a positive or negative consequence. Dialogue choices and which leaders you side with all inform the path of your character, and ultimately, you can decide whether to save the tree of life, or watch the world crumble before you with a maniacal grin.
For a game that literally none of us knew existed a month ago, BioMutant has rocketed up my list of games I'm most looking forward to in 2018. While the demo itself was a bit simplistic, the elements that were there worked really well in unison. If the developers at Experiment 101 can deliver on their promises, BioMutant could be something special.
Marty Sliva is a Executive Editor at IGN. A girl he was dating once stepped on his PlayStation 4, and now he no longer owns PT. But don't worry, they broke up. Follow him on Twitter @McBiggitty.
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