Last year, developer Experiment 101 released Biomutant. It came with a fresh perspective to the open adventure titles but was plagued by a lot of issues. Biomutant has reemerged with a variety of upgrades that seek to shore up many of the surface problems that were apparent when the game arrived on previous past-gen consoles last year, with the ambition to make it better with the all-powerful PS5. Unsurprisingly, a significant improvement in technical performance is what the PS5 version of Biomutant adds over the game’s last-generation version.
One clear and much surprising step they took came in the form of three distinct graphic settings from which the player may select. These setups, which are now becoming common from past-gen games moving to the current, show that even a small developer knows that players want the option. The three options available are fidelity mode, which limits native 4K visuals to 30 frames per second; performance mode, which limits 1440p visuals to 60 frames per second; and quality unleashed mode, which guarantees 40 to 60 frames per second at dynamic 4K resolution.
Given the unstable framerate of Biomutant when running on past-gen consoles and their variations, Biomutant can be played at a rock solid 60 frames per second and is an absolute game changer in every sense. However, there are still a few moments of frames skipping or the surrounding environment needing a little more time to load properly. It’s not enough to ship it down the river but is still noticeable. The exploration and traversal that is so prevalent throughout Biomutant feel so much more satisfying now on PS5, it’s really the combat side of things that benefits the most, as encounters are now played out with the sort of liquid smoothness and ultra-responsive controls that just weren’t able to be accommodated by Biomutant when running on past-gen consoles like the PS4.
Beyond visual enhancements, the PS5 version of Biomutant offers support for adaptive trigger and haptic feedback, which add a level of tangible immersion to the action that simply wasn’t present before. The rattling of guns being fired, swords slicing through the air, and leaping from one surface to another are all expertly conveyed through the DualSense controller. Although one could argue that due to varying degrees of effective implementations, the haptic feedback and adaptive trigger technologies that define the DualSense controller are beginning to feel a little shop-worn.
When you update to the PS5 version of Biomutant, you can pick up right where you left off thanks to a nice little feature called cross-save support. This feature is made even more appealing by the fact that anyone who owns the PS4 version of the game can upgrade for free to the PS5 version of Biomutant. The game’s structure has not altered since Biomutant’s last PS4 release. Biomutant is one of the more innovative spins on that stale subject in a long time. It is an open-world adventure that masterfully blends a hybrid melee and ranged fighting system with an Eastern-influenced scenario.
In particular, the use of a comprehensive character creation tool allows users to nearly infinitely fine-tune their post-apocalyptic furry hero or villain, while also embracing an astounding amount of creative freedom to change the key protagonist’s appearance. It’s wonderful stuff that genuinely gives you the impression that Biomutant’s protagonist is wholly your own design. Regarding the mutations aspect of things, Biomutant enables players to further customize their selected, meaningfully enhancing them with a new set of skills, resistances, and other things.
Exploration in Biomutant is done well, and the player will benefit from engaging in it regularly. However, the fighting is a bit of a letdown. Although nobody was anticipating God of War levels of complexity and polish, using a blade or a gun in any of Biomutant’s many violent encounters just feel uninteresting due to oddly muted sound effects that make attacks simply not sound like they land at all. Additionally, occasionally jerky animation where our furry protagonist can jump from one series of attacks to another further emphasizes the need for additional polish here.
Even though Biomutant has a lot of shortcomings, it claims its position as a generally enjoyable open-world action RPG because of its commendably original scenario, in-depth multi-class creation system, and soothing exploratory beats that help to set it apart from other open-world offers. Biomutant on the PS5 helps alleviate the performance issues and instability that beset the past-gen versions of the game, with only a few moments of fps issues or loading up the surroundings. Biomutant has a ton of potential even a year after its release, but still needs a touch of love to make it the game it is destined to become.
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