BIOMUTANT

Biomutant casts you as a small, customisable mutant animal wielding martial arts, firearms and elemental mutant powers across Experiment 101's colourful, sprawling take on a post-apocalyptic world, its story delivered almost constantly by an ever-present narrator voicing every character's dialogue on your behalf. The game was announced back in August 2017, generated years of anticipation through a protracted development cycle — during which THQ Nordic acquired the small Swedish studio and its IP — and multiple delays from an original 2018 target, before finally launching on 25 May

2021. Five years on, it sits at Mixed on Steam, roughly 66% of 20,142 total reviews, a score that has

barely moved since launch week, because the review sample's account of what the game gets right and wrong has barely changed either.

Years of hype, and a first impression that lived up to it

It's worth taking seriously how much anticipation Biomutant carried into launch — a distinctive concept revealed years in advance, repeatedly delayed in ways that fuelled speculation the extra time was being spent on polish rather than lost to trouble. Reviewers consistently confirm that the opening hours genuinely deliver on some of that promise: a striking, colourful world, unusually deep character and mount customisation, and combat that blends melee combos, ranged weapons and mutant powers in a way several reviewers call satisfying, at least at first. "The world, the style, and the whole idea behind the game are great," reads a representative 2026 review. "It has a really unique atmosphere." Even reviewers who ultimately don't recommend the game routinely open with real enthusiasm for these opening hours before explaining what changes.

The complaint that repeats itself, word for word, across five years

What makes Biomutant's review history worth examining in detail is how tightly the negative sample converges on a single, specific pattern, phrased almost identically by reviewers who've never read each other's posts. "First hour or two of this game are pretty fun but then you realize the rest of the game is your first two hours but over and over again," reads a 537-vote review. "The game is very enjoyable on its first few hours. After that, everything gets very repetitive and tedious," reads another, independently, with 564 votes. A third: "fun gameplay for the first couple hours however, game gets repetitive and stale after passing that threshold." This isn't three isolated opinions — it's the dominant shape of the entire negative review sample, from launch week in 2021 through reviews posted in 2026, describing the same experience in near-identical terms five years apart.

Underneath that repetition, reviewers identify specific mechanical causes. Several describe a world-scaling system that undercuts the sense of character growth: "levelling up seems pointless since the entire world scales with you," reads one 535-vote review from a player who completed the full campaign anyway. Others point to combat that feels mechanically shallow despite its variety — "combat is devoid of feedback, and hitboxes are terrible," reads one blunt 279-vote review — and an open world that looks impressive but offers little to actually do inside it: "the world looks gorgeous, but is very dull in terms of things that you can [meaningfully interact with]."

A narrator nobody asked to hear this much of

A second, more specific complaint concerns how the story is told. Rather than voiced dialogue between characters, Biomutant routes almost all narrative content through a single, constant narrator voice — summarising events, translating characters' gibberish speech, and commenting on the action in real time, including during combat. Reviewers describe this choice, more than the writing itself, as the game's clearest storytelling misstep: "Story is like... when your mom was reading you a book before sleep, everything said by one single voice," reads one review, capturing a sentiment that recurs across the sample. It's a design choice players can partially mitigate — a settings option reduces how frequently the narrator speaks — but reviewers are consistent that even at reduced frequency, it doesn't fix a story most describe as thin regardless of how it's delivered.

Value, and what "cash grab" reviews were really about

A specific, dated complaint worth flagging honestly: many of the most-upvoted negative reviews focus as much on the NZ$63.95 launch price as on the game's mechanical shortcomings — "this game isn't finished... this was a flat-out cash grab at $60," reads one 279-vote review, and several others explicitly say the game would be worth recommending at a much lower price point. That complaint has, in effect, been addressed by time rather than by the developer: Biomutant now sits at a sustained 75% discount, NZ$15.98, a price several more recent reviews explicitly say makes it a reasonable purchase where full price didn't. It's a useful reminder that "how it aged" sometimes means the market corrected a value complaint the design itself never did.

How it has aged

Biomutant's reputation has been essentially fixed since its first week, and a 2025 review captures the closest thing to a definitive "how it aged" verdict in the sample: "One of those games that had all the potential in the world... an original setting, fun looking creatures and a colorful post-apocalyptic vibe that really stood out. That's why it's such a shame that [it] never really received a solid update to bring it up to its potential." Unlike several other 2021 titles that spent years patching, rebalancing or expanding their launch state, the review sample gives little evidence of substantial post-launch investment in fixing the specific structural complaints — repetition, world scaling, shallow combat depth — that defined the game from day one. The achievement data reflects that ceiling: a strong opening milestone at 78%, but a median across 46 achievements of just 11.8%, with several completionist achievements sitting below 2% — consistent with a large audience that starts strong and drops off well before full completion.

6 out of 10. Biomutant remains a genuinely distinctive, good-looking open-world RPG whose years of pre-launch hype set expectations its actual systems couldn't sustain past the opening hours — a verdict the review sample has held remarkably steady on since the very first week. At its current steep discount, the character customisation and setting are worth the price of admission on their own; just go in expecting the game reviewers describe, not the one years of delays and trailers promised.