So, Biomutant has been out long enough for people to review, come up with theories, and write a whole bunch guides for the game. There are text, video, and all other kinds of tutorials for just about every aspect of the game. But, one of the integral parts of Biomutant, the crafting, is pretty self-explanatory.
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Once a player figures out how it works, the whole game sort of opens up, and crafting becomes, by far, the most rewarding part of Biomutant. While Biomutant is janky in many ways, its crafting system is by far the most “complete” part of the game. It should be noted that 101 Games has made it clear it intends to work on improving the game overall.
With that in mind, here are some of the most important things to know upfront so that players can experience Biomutant for the enjoyable yet highly flawed open-world game that it is.
Now, something that Biomutant’s crafting does differently from most systems found in other games is that a “crafted item” is still completely editable. A lot of players have been making the mistake of not editing a weapon they've already built. Now, to be fair, there's a good reason for that. In other titles, once something is crafted, that's the new version of it. But, Biomutant’s crafting works more like building something out of Lego's, in a couple of ways:
- Players can switch out parts anytime they want
- Each weapon is made up of a bunch of different potential building blocks
- Players can follow standard options for weapons or they can go completely off the beaten path
- The individual parts, more often than not, don't match at all in color or in size
Now sure, there’s a small resource cost for equipping or switching new items in, but players should constantly be updating their weapon or gun of choice with newer and better parts over the course of the game or even a single play session. Though since ranged weapons are already so innately strong, players (especially Deadeye players) might not even remember to update their parts.
There is an important distinction to be made when it comes to dismantling or selling crated items or gear. Players can go in and individually unequip all addons for a piece of gear before selling it, or they can just dismantle it. When dismantling something crafted or with add-ons applied to it, the game will offer to break it down into all its individual pieces.
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But, if a player sells their item without dismantling it first, those add-ons go with it. So, make sure not to accidentally get rid of Legendary add-ons or weapon parts by selling something without checking what it’s made up of first.
There are a couple of ways to tell if a piece of gear, weapon part, or the weapon itself is better than its peers. There’s always the rarity of the item, as well as the quality and materials it's made out of. But, primarily, players have been using how much "Green" (the currency in Biomutant) it would sell for as the denotation of its quality. And, while that works for the most part, it isn’t the end-all-be-all statistic to pay attention to. Other stats that actually make a big difference (other than attack or defense) are:
- Energy Regeneration
- Attack Speed
- Loot Chance
- Critical Chance
- Ki Energy
- Health Bonus
Whatever stat most fits a specific character build is what will actually propel a part or gear piece to the top of the list more than the overall defense or attack should (unless it's a gigantic jump in damage or defense).
Another aspect of the crafting system that tends to be overlooked is the labeling. Every single part picked up from an interactable clearly labels if it's:
- A piece of gear and what part of the body it goes on
- A melee weapon part
- A ranged weapon part
- An add-on
- Where on a ranged weapon it goes
- The quality of the part or gear
- The materials the gear or part is made from
- All the individual stat bonuses it provides
- Its elemental resistances
- Its rarity
- And even a star ranking
The labeling isn’t subtle or anything, but plenty of people tend to glance over this particular part of the description unconsciously every time.
Crafting items isn’t nearly as expensive as upgrading items, but it does still cost a pretty penny, resource-wise. Basically, for every part that makes up a weapon or gun, there’s a resource cost attached to it. So, for the most part, guns are more expensive to craft than melee weapons (even the best ones) simply because they have more parts.
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And, switching out parts costs resources too, but it’s very cheap in comparison. Thankfully, there are an absurd amount of resource towers spread throughout the open world, so it's not too bad grinding or dismantling old stuff for more.
While the intention of this guide isn’t to harp on the upgrading system too much, it is possible to confuse the two systems at first. Some players thought that there was some part of the crafting mechanic that allowed for upgrades, or that people were simply describing switching an old gun part out for a new, better one, as “upgrading” it. But, no, they’re actually two completely separate mechanics.
The crafting system has to do with every single stat other than the quality and materials, while the upgrading system specifically upgrades all parts of a weapon or piece of gear that has to do with its quality or materials.
Upgrading is a costly process, taking a specific amount of each resource to upgrade the quality or materials of a particular item. Now, for weapons, upgrading is pretty useful if used on the right stuff. But, for gear, it’s honestly too little of an improvement for the price, and that's only one of many reasons not to do it. Others include:
- Each upgrade increases the defense of a piece of gear by 1 for an absurd amount of resources
- Players don't get those resources back by dismantling the upgraded gear
- It (usually) doesn't buff any of the other stats outside of defense or attack
- Nine times out of ten, players will find something in the same play session much better than the gear they had just upgraded multiple times.