Biomutant Preview, Interview

Stefan Ljungqvist, Experiment 101’s Head of Studio, presented Biomutant live on stage at the PC Gamer Weekender. And later, during a hands-on preview session, he candidly spoke with WCCFTech about his upcoming furry kung fu action-RPG, its unique setting, mechanics, expected console performance, and more. Here’s an excerpt from that interview:

I’ve noticed that you’ve already included the option to turn down the frequency that the narrator speaks in the game. What was your reasoning for this exactly? Was the option put in place due to people playing and disliking it?

No, I think it’s only a small amount of people that say they dislike it. Those players are always the most vocal ones. I think if you buy a game, that game should be your game, so we are going to try and put in as many options as we want. That was the notion from the get-go. There’s always the trade-off though as we are a small team, so we cannot make everything. Photo Mode a good example of that. People say, “you have to put it in!”, and yeah, we know, but we also have to finish the game! It’s especially important when you are a small team to figure out how much of this can you actually do, realistically. Our goal is to include as many options as possible. The more you play, we are tuning the frequency of the narrator already. If you’ve played for an hour, the dynamic community you will hear will have already been tuned. During combat, that’s when some players won’t want to hear it anymore at all. Okay, you can turn it off if you want to, but the game will also automatically do that for you. However, the narrator is also an important figure in the game… you cannot turn off the narrator completely because he is interpreting what all of the characters are saying. If he is off, you will only hear the animal mumbo jumbo. He’s a vital part of the narrative.

I understand that Experiment 101 was acquired by THQ Nordic back in November 2017. Has this impacted the development process at all?

No.

Really? They didn’t give you any money?

We don’t need it. For us, they provided the resources we needed from the get-go. We were working with them from the start of last year. We had a true commitment, we are going to take full responsibility for the game, and they are going to empower us to do it. They really proved that from GamesCom when we announced it, moving forward. To us, it was a natural decision when they invited us to become a part of the family because it fitted well. Now we are an internal studio, I’ve worked in video games for twenty-five years, across five studios and we’ve always been independent. Even Avalanche is an independent studio. That means, as a developer, you are always thinking about a lot of other things, like running the actual company. One of the reasons I left Avalanche, I mean, they are my best friends, I love them, I just wanted to go back and make games. I’m an artist, I wanted to go back and make games again. This was very good for us in the way that they [THQ Nordic] can take a lot of the other things so we can focus on making the game.

Action games work best at 60FPS, will Biomutant run at this refresh rate on consoles?

We were in a phase where we were actually thinking about it, but if you look at all of the open world games on console, none of them are running at 60FPS. There’s a reason for that, because there’s always a trade-off. If you are making a level-based game, it’s a lot easier to control that. We put emphasis on this open world adventure, specifically on the journey and on trying to have the game look as good as possible. Here, at the PC Gamer Weekender, you will see the demo we are displaying is 150% better looking than last year, and it runs 150% better. On the PC, I expect it would go beyond what we are showing here. Today we are showing everything on par – all the platforms on par – so this is actually what it looks like on consoles.

You can also check out WCCFTech’s hands-on preview itself and learn a bit about the game’s progression and combat:

During my brief hands-on session with the game, I encountered a group of Morks. These creatures are integral to the upgrade system in Biomutant. Usually situated near the contaminated pools in the world, you’ll need to defeat Morks in order to acquire Bio Points. These points can then be spent at the contaminated pools on bio-mutations and upgrades for your character. Alongside the physical bio-mutations, you will also have access to psionic mutations, although these are obtained in a different way. By visiting old bunkers, you will be able to expose your character to radioactive machinery, which will enable you to unlock psionic abilities. Later on in the game, if you happen to befriend a crazy inventor called Wisk, he will also lend you a hand by crafting some valuable bionics, including a jump pack and a set of wings.

In the preview build, I was able to test out a few of the upgrades and moves that will be available when the game releases later on this year. One of the moves, entitled, ‘Phoenix Wright’ enabled me to slow-mo jump while using my guns against enemies. The slow-motion effect gave me a good advantage to begin with, but this felt heavily overdone in the short period of time that I spent with the game. I also unlocked the ‘Mothmouth mutation’ which, as you would expect, spawned a lot of moths around me. I’m sure they were supposed to do something useful but they didn’t really do anything other than fly around. A telekinesis power enabled me to lift and hurl nearby objects at enemies and the ‘Fungimush mutation’ spawned a bouncy mushroom to help me reach higher areas. So far, there appears to be a decent amount of variety with regards to the mutations available to players. I’m looking forward to testing these out in the final build too.