BIOMUTANT is a dull RPG that treads water with beauty and charm

By James Davenport

So Biomutant is a boring game that survives on some modicum of charm. This is an RPG in which you can leap from your grotesque horse, summon a ball of mucus around yourself to roll up your enemies with, ‘detonate’ the mucus to send them flying, and finish with a slow-motion Max Payne-esque volley of electric bullets from a gun with a trumpet horn for a muzzle. It should be brilliant, gonzo fun. It’s tragic, then, that hollow progression and an incessant narrator suck out so much of the joy.

Biomutant feels like it’s going to be much more, but in practice it’s an endless stream of new ideas that go nowhere and beautiful, toxic landscapes with little to offer except an excuse to use photo mode. It’s especially disappointing because Biomutant’s optimistic vision of the postapocalypse is a refreshing take on the end times, with a weasel dressed like Elvis for every fascist cannibal emperor in Fallout. But if you strip out the gangly, affable muppets, all that’s left is a broken open-world RPG with little else to discover except another cheap riff on the same colour-matching puzzle. At least it looks amazing.

LIFE AFTER DEATH 

Biomutant imagines the worst case scenario for mankind: total eradication from pollution, late-latecapitalist greed and exploitation, war – it’s a who’s who of the biggest bummers. But it also depicts a vibrant world teeming with life after we’re gone. Even though there’s another apocalypse on the way, it’s embraced with curiosity and inevitability by most of Earth’s future fur citizens, from a hulking chef who only aspires to make the tastiest food possible to a mousy fashionista who wants everyone to freely express themselves before the end of the world.