Biomutant is a multi-layered throwback. On the surface, the mundane open world, slippery combat, and messy dialog trees flashback to the original Fable, as if Biomutant were resurrected from the first Xbox, then remastered.

It wasn’t, to note.

Then the story, pleading to a pre-teen audience about global climate catastrophes in a way even Captain Planet’s writers would shun for their forced delivery. Biomutant’s world is the result of a single corporation who called themselves Toxanal (as to be upfront about their legal liabilities). They poisoned Earth, creating mutants, and thus this meandering, repetitive plot line.

Where Biomutant intends to make a statement, it instead speaks down to pre-teens, and the odd, questionable elements – from fairly violent encounters to peeing on posts to mark territory for fast travel – try to amplify (or justify) the childish attitude. The surrealism at play with off-putting character designs and a sleep-inducing narrator don’t compel further progress. An initial claim about an “unusual ending” is borderline false advertising too; it’s as pedestrian as the rest.

Borderline offensive callbacks to Hong Kong martial arts films, injected into this listless fable via weak fighting styles, play into a rudimentary good vs evil theme. Other than a messy introduction about choosing a clan, there’s no moral challenge in Biomutant. Again, Biomutant aims low, aims obvious, and with all that aim, still misses.

2/5