Colorful Fighting Cat game Bimutant has looked quite delightful since we first heard of it, making it all the more disappointing when the developers’ information was so sparse after blowing past the original 2018 release window. Experiment 101 finally announced a release date in May earlier this week and has now said what they have been doing all along: pushing bugs into silence and trying not to overwork their small team.
Experiment 101 studio head Stefan Ljungqvist spoke to IGN and explained that the team is only 20 people and that the ambitious open world game they envisioned could bite off a lot for the small team. You get a sense of how much Biomutant is trying to do in RPS’s interview with Ljungqvist last summer. See below.
It’s an open world with a customizable cat protagonist, tribes of other cats, RPG systems, tons of customizable weapons, huge enemies, soaring through the air, and more. Over the past year, Ljungqvist has said that Biomutant’s text has also more than doubled as part of the karma system in which NPCs will respond to the alignment of your character. Oh, and it looks beautiful too.
In any open world game, there are inevitable mistakes in the open world that need to be corrected before launch. “At the end of the project, there are only a certain amount of mistakes that you can physically repair throughout the day,” Ljungqvist explains. This is even more true with such a small team. He says that E101 waited to announce an issue date until they were decidedly ready, hoping that they would not avoid sending serious problems, and, more importantly, the team preparing them to meet the launch day, would not burn.
“If we do, it’s controlled, and it was rare. I think now that we’re going into release, we’re willing to do it for a few days, but that’s not the constant thing. kill, “says Ljungqvist on the subject of crunch. ‘We are 20 people and we can not afford to have it [staff] leaving the studio, or being destroyed during development. That would be devastating. ‘
The concept of crunch at game studios was back in the spotlight thanks to Cyberpunk 2077, an open world, whose management claims they would not require the team to complete the game, but in any case needed overtime and then a cart launch. CD Projekt Red is far from the only example, but it is the largest recent version.
It’s encouraging to see Experiment 101 leave a long piece of silent work to say that they’re trying to create a beautiful and ambitious game that the team can be proud of without sacrificing their health and happiness in return. I’m really excited to play their colorful martial arts contest when it launches in May, and I hope it can be a success story for healthy development.
Biomutant will be released on Steam on May 25th. It will also be available on PS4 and Xbox One.