We really enjoyed THQ Nordic’s Biomutant when it released on PS4 and Xbox One back in May 2021. And now it’s been enhanced for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, it’s better than ever.
This open world adventure RPG casts you as a mutated creature, trying to forge an existence in a world ruined by humans. (Humans. It’s always the humans, isn’t it?). There’s a huge world to explore, endless beasts to battle against, and a wealth of quests, both narrative and optional. It’s a huge game, all told, particularly if you want to see and do everything. When we originally played it, we saw the credits roll in about 20 hours. But that left us with a huge to-do list of side activities. And thankfully, the PS5 version, which we’ve been playing this week, allows you to easily carry over your save.
Whether you’d want to carry it over, though, is up to you. Because starting Biomutant again, making full use of the improvements on PS5 and Xbox Series X, will undoubtedly give you a better experience than before. Let’s be clear: this is not exactly a night-and-day difference. Biomutant looked perfectly fine as a PS4 game. But now, new graphic options allow you to choose between quality and performance, or a ‘best of both’ setting. Quality mode offers 30fps at 4K resolution; Performance offers locked 60fps at 1440p, and Quality Unleashed offers 40+ fps, with ‘up to’ 4K resolution.
We opted for Quality Unleashed to make use of slightly better visuals than Performance, and we were pleasantly surprised. The framerate remains solid and consistent, and controlling our mutant is silky smooth. In contrast, while Quality mode looks fantastic – the vibrant world of Biomutant really does shine here – we’re not sure it’s worth the downgrade to 30fps. In a world where we’re now frequently treated to 60 frames per second, 30 really does feel sluggish.
The real highlight of Biomutant on PS5, though, is its DualSense functionality. Happily, the game makes full use of the features of Sony’s fantastic controller. From adaptive triggers that react to whatever weapon you’re using, to the feel of running water rumbling in your controller when you’re near a body of water, it helps Biomutant feel more immersive than ever. The speaker is also used, offering an enhanced audio experience. It’d be hard to go back to playing without this DualSense implementation now, quite frankly.
Of course, if you’re playing Biomutant on Xbox Series X/S, you’re going to miss out on that glorious controller optimisation. But you will still benefit from better performance and resolution. On Xbox Series X, the three modes mirror the PS5’s. On Xbox Series S, however, Quality mode is locked at 1440p, while Performance mode is 60fps at 1080p.
And so, if you’ve never played Biomutant before, now’s a great time to jump in if you own a PS5 or Xbox Series X/S. And if you have played but need a good excuse to jump back in and tidy up some of those side quests, what are you waiting for?
You can read our original review of Biomutant by clicking here.
