Biomutant Guide For Beginners

Biomutant is an open-world action RPG from Experiment 101, a 20-person team. It releases May 25th on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC with native PS5 and Series X versions following post-launch. It isn't the most inspired game you'll play, but it has plenty of systems, some of which aren't explained super well in-game. This Biomutant guide covers character creation, skill points, gear, and basic combat tips that should leave you with a better understanding of what you want and what to expect before starting the game. 

Biomutant Guide For Beginners —Picking Your Biomutant Clas

Biomutant features a fairly robust character creator. While cosmetic customization is a bit thin, gameplay-altering decisions run aplenty before controlling your character for the first time. You'll first have to zero in on a breed. Each breed has different stat predispositions. Before this, however, you'll need to know what each stat does, listed below:

• Vitality - Determines your health as well as the energy used up when dodging.
  • Health - Self explanatory. It's just your health. 
  • Armor - Determines how much damage you can take. Gear plays a huge role in your overall armor.
• Strength
  • Melee Damage - Strength and melee damage are interchangeable and self-explanatory. They influence your physical damage dealing potential. 
• Intellect - A higher intellect stat provides more moves during puzzles. Puzzles involve rotating objects or flipping switches with a finite number of actions.
  • Power - Influences the damage dealt by psi-powers and mutations.
  • Ki Energy - Increases the amount of ki energy available, the meter used by special attacks, mutations, dodges, and psi-powers.
  • Energy Regeneration - Determines how quickly ki energy regenerates.
• Agility - Defines your overall speed.
  • Move Speed - Only refers to movement speed, both in and out of battle.
• Charisma - A high charisma stat lets you persuade characters, which can be used to avoid entire battles and sieges. 
  • Barter - Determines how much currency you get from selling items in addition to a discount on purchasable items.
• Luck 
  • Critical Chance - The genre staple critical hit chance. Influences how often attacks deal extra damage. 
  • Loot Chance - Influences the chances of finding rare loot comprised of higher quality materials. 

The breeds are listed below: 

• Primal - This breed starts with a 4% critical chance with its stats mostly centered around health, armor, and ki energy regeneration. Do not pick this class hoping for high starting melee damage.
• Dumdon - Dumdons begin with a 3% critical chance and high melee damage, armor, and health. This is the ideal damage dealer.
• Rex - The Rex also begins with a 3% critical hit chance. Its starting melee damage is much lower than the dumdon, though with noticeable boosts to health and intellect, which governs power , ki energy, and energy regeneration.
• Hyla - Hyla's are ideal tanks as they have the highest starting health and armor pool of all breeds. Beyond this, they aren't very special. It's worth noting the Hyla's critical chance is reduced to 2%.
• Fip - The perfect breed for players looking to make powers and mutations a larger part of their repertoire than basic melee and ranged attacks. Fips have the highest base power, ki energy, and energy regeneration. They also start with the standard 3% critical chance.
• Murgel - Murgels begin with 4% critical chance and 5% loot chance, up from every other class' 3%. Their barter skill is also boosted from other class' 7% up to 10%.

After deciding on a breed, you'll be given the opportunity to define your genetic structure. This comes in the form of a circular slider. Moving the cursor along the slider redistributes the available stat points. Individuals can make adjustments as they see fit for their desired build. Be cognizant of your breed's strengths and weaknesses during this step. Don't dump everything into intellect for a dumdon, as an example. After this, you'll get the option to choose a genetic resistance using the same circular slider system. It's best to nudge slightly in the direction of two or more heavily in one without letting any resistance sit at zero. The earlier you can explore toxic regions, the better. 

Class selection comes after these steps. Each class has unique passive bonuses, listed below:

• Dead-Eye - Gains access to "Perfect Reload". Guns are reloaded instantly with a 20% damage boost in the next magazine.
• Commando - Gains access to "Fury". Ranged weapon attacks deal 10% more damage. 
• Psi-Freak -This class is unique in that it gets both an active and passive skill. Its active skill is "Spark Ball". After being mapped to an input, you can shoot electric-infused balls of energy. It's passive is "Megamind". This increases ki energy regeneration by 20%.
• Saboteur - Gains access to two passives. "Silver Grip" allows the user to dual-wield different one-handed melee weapons. "Hypergenetic" reduces the energy cost of dodging by 20%.
• Sentinel - Gains access to "Toughness". This increases armor by 10. 

For the most optimal character, consider your needs throughout the entire character creation process. If you want a beefy tank, pair the Dumdon or Hyla with the Sentinel class, assuming you didn't wildly alter your genetic structure, for example. Murgels should also be paired with Saboteurs. Of course, at the end of the day, Biomutant offers so much customization that it doesn't really matter. If you want to make the most of the options available, though, pairing the right breeds with the right classes makes for an easier ride. 

Biomutant Gear

Biomutant's gear system is its deepest element, but we can give you some pieces of advice without delving too deep. As with most RPG's, don't get too attached to gear. All equipment can be improved via two methods--add-ons and upgrading. Upgrading equipment requires finding specified upgrade benches scattered across the map, often found in balloons floating above villages.

Conversely, different pieces of gear feature varying amounts of add-on slots. Think of add-ons as mods. They usually improve the equipment's base state, though rarer add-ons have other benefits. One example might be an add-on that improves a robe's armor while also increasing loot chance or energy regeneration. If you're really strapped for stats and struggling with combat, hoping for that extra nudge in your favor, add-ons are the safer bet. Even when dealing with rare, high quality add-ons, you'll only need two of each crafting resource at most. Add-ons are acquired as loot drops from chests. While gear can be purchased at shops, add-ons cannot.

Upgrading, on the other hand, quickly becomes expensive. It's best to save this until you're a high level or have spent several hours without meaningful loot drops. Crafting materials can be acquired through resource totems scattered across the map or as drops from defeated enemies. Gear can also be scrapped for materials.

Understanding Points and Resistances

Biomutant divvies up its points allocation across three categories--upgrade points, bio points, and psi-points. Upgrade points are the simplest to understand. They're used to unlock moves and bonuses from the wung-fu menu. Upgrade points are awarded upon every level-up.

Bio points are used for mutations and upgrading the various elemental resistances. Mutations include abilities such as vile bile, which spews toxic slush from your mouth. Bio points are found in bioblob containers, obtained from defeating biocreeps, and are also found at nucleus tower sites. Psi-points unlock psi-powers. These include abilities such blink, a dash that creates a shockwave. Psi-points are acquired by interacting with shrines and making certain dialogue choices. Psi-powers also distinguish themselves from mutations in that certain powers are locked off based on your moral alignment.

Don't sleep on the elemental resistances. Several areas of the map feature high levels of heat, cold, radiation, or bio-hazard poisoning. Higher resistances allow more time within these areas. Gear also comes with its own elemental affinities, though it varies wildly from piece to piece. Don't rely on gear because there's going to be something better down the line that may not have the same resistance you're after. Visiting toxic areas is recommended after exceeding 50% resistance. Anything lower than that places too much pressure to find what you need before health starts draining. 

Biomutant Combat Tips

Biomutant feels like an average hack and slash on the surface until you acquire new skills and hone in on class-specific traits. There is a basic attack, mapped to either the square or x button on PlayStation or Xbox. You can also dodge and shoot projectile weapons, be they handguns, rifles, or even a boomerang. You'll come to find out that Biomutant lacks a heavy attack button. The expected y or triangle attack doesn't do anything until you unlock wung-fu attacks using upgrade points. 

Wung-fu is just a fancy name for the game's move list. While every class has a different name for it, each has two distinct input sequences that make use of the typical heavy attack button. There's an x, x, y (or square, square, triangle) sequence and a sequence involving pressing y (or triangle) after firing a gun twice. These are the first two things you should spend upgrade points on because they are considered special attacks. Special attacks are the key to super wung-fu, a limited-time high powered rage state that becomes essential to making mince meat of foes. Super wung-fu is reach by executing three different specials according to the game, however, this wording is a little misleading. You don't need a third special beyond the aforementioned input sequences, though it won't hurt if you want to acquire it. You simply need to mix them up.

Using my Saboteur's dual-wielding kit as an example, my special attack sequences are unstoppable pig and unknowable force. In order to initiate super wung-fu, activate unknowable force, followed by unstoppable pig, followed by unknowable force. Biomutant counts this as three separate specials, gifting the almighty super wung-fu state. 

During regular combat, pay close attention to button prompts. Attacks can be parried with LB (or L1) signified by a row of electric bolts above an enemy's head. Distance isn't a concern during these situations. As long as you press a button, the desired contextual action will be triggered. For example, after parrying an attack, you'll see x or square pop up in place of the earlier symbols. This is the counter attack. Enemies that end up stunned after counterattacks will show LB (or L1) beside them. Following this through leads to a launcher, which then lets you deal an air combo by mashing the standard attack button. 

If you find yourself overwhelmed by groups, prioritize counters. You'll avoid damage by sticking to the air as much as possible. Additionally, in some cases, this counter to launcher loop can lead you to stragglers further from the pack that's pummeling you. Learning to react to any on-screen prompts is one of the greatest keys to surviving tough encounters. Large foes, such as the one pictured above, are easily exploitable by dodging between their legs back and forth while landing a few attacks between each dodge. 

While distance doesn't determine button prompts, it plays a significant role in health regeneration. All enemies are governed by invisible domes dictating the combat space. Wander outside this dome and enemies will begin to retreat and fully refill health bars. This isn't an issue for normal fights, but against the special enemies with large health pools, you're better served showing an aggressive streak. Rather than pulling back, strafe in a circle to avoid triggering this "despawn". 

The Biomutant Journey

Biomutant has a lot of systems, some of which this guide only described on a surface-level. There are also systems not alluded to at all. It's a lot to wrap your head around, especially with an initially daunting UI and sometimes unclear in-game explanations. This guide provided enough information to give players looking to purchase the game a head-start on their early-game decisions and combat strategies. It won't make the game cake-walk, but understanding these basics frees you up to better understand more complicated systems during the usual early-game learning process.