It's been just under a month since Biomutant's release, and while it's certainly found something of a following, it's fair to say it left many players uninspired. The developers at Experiment 101 seem to be doing their best to learn from Biomutant's distinctly average review scores, though, firing out patch after patch to help turn the game around.

Biomutant's Post-Release Patch 1.5 hit Steam today, with consoles to follow "as soon as possible." This is quite a hefty one, it seems, adding some important changes and fixing some troubling bugs following on from the previous 1.4 patch. Of particular note is the doubling of the level cap, raising the ceiling from 50 to 100. This will undoubtedly serve to give players something to aim for as they check out the other changes, such as tweaks to the New Game+ framework which will increase the difficulty on each subsequent playthrough, Dark Souls-style.

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There are some much-appreciated changes on the technical side of things, too. PC users will rejoice to find some extra Field of View options now available, offering some much-needed flexibility to those with widescreen monitors. Elsewhere, some irritating bugs and glitches have seemingly been fixed up, including one that had the narrator repeat a line far more often than was necessary and a crash-to-desktop bug that worryingly occurred "when a character receives damage."

Players can also now activate some UI options to hide the HUD when not in battle, along with adding a welcome accessibility option for the Quick Menu, introducing a mappable toggle button and eliminating the need to hold down a button to open it. Other highlights include some new handy UI and Map indicators, but there are plenty more tweaks, buffs, and nerfs coming with this update. All of those can be found in the full patch notes down below.

Despite its milquetoast review scores, Biomutant managed to round up a fairly impressive player base at release. However, in the weeks following its sterling 55,000-player peak, that number has steadily declined. Currently the game sits at around 1,800 concurrent players, and it remains to be seen whether these post-launch updates will bring itinerant players back into the fold.

Still, it can't be denied that the developers are following through on their promise to right Biomutant's wrongs. As various reviewers have pointed out, there is plenty to fix in the game, so the process may well be a lengthy one. But if they get it right, Biomutant could be due a well-deserved renaissance some time in the future.

Here are the full patch notes for Biomutant's 1.5 update:

PC Specific

• Added “Field of View Type” setting for selecting between horizontal and vertical Field of View. Vertical Field of View is useful when using a wider monitor to get the correct aspect ratio. By default, the Field of View is set to be horizontal.
• Fixed crash when temporarily losing contact with the GPU.

Progression

• Increased level cap from 50 to 100.

Items & Loot

In order to improve the looting experience, we’ve tweaked how the loot generation works to reduce duplicate items and improve variety. We have also added several new items which have higher stats than their lower rarity counterparts. This means that an item found with a certain rarity can also be found later with a higher rarity and much improved stats.

And to top it off we have also added a much-requested scrap action to the loot screen, which should reduce time spent cleaning up the inventory.

• Added more superb loot variations.
• Added higher tier relic and legendary weapon parts that will start dropping at level 50.
• Updated loot generation to provide more variation and less duplicate items.
• Added scrap action to loot screen.
• Added settings for hiding or showing head items.
• Increased damage of later tribe weapons to better fit player level and gear.
• Removed addon slots from special gear that can't be scrapped, lost or crafted with.
• Fixed issue which allowed an unlimited material supply to be gained from crafting.
• Fixed Missile Cloud to correctly fire on every fourth shot during Rapid Shot in SuperWushu.
• Updated Saw Blades to have a lower spread, higher velocity and correct pierce through enemy behavior.
• Fixed Pichu Nanchuk being hidden in inspect mode.
• Fixed issue where it was possible to equip another one-handed weapon when the Pichu Nanchuk was already equipped.
• Fixed issue which caused Valve addon to have higher stats than intended.
• Reduced resistance values for Ancient Pants to make other gear more viable.
• Fixed favorite consumables quick menu being scrambled when there are no free slots available.
• Fixed Automaton Health Injector cooldown being reset when using Automaton Boost resulting in Automaton Health Injector only being refilled after resting.

Settings

• Added “HUD > Mode” setting where it’s possible to select either “ALWAYS SHOW” or “DYNAMIC”. Selecting the “DYNAMIC” option hides the persistent UI elements after a while outside combat. When “DYNAMIC” is selected the player can open either menu or quick menu for the UI elements to show up temporarily. By default, the old “ALWAYS SHOW” behavior is selected.
• Added “Quick Menu Toggle” accessibility setting. When enabled the player isn’t required to hold down the corresponding input to open the quick menus in order to e.g. use a consumable or swap weapons. Instead, the quick menus will open and close by tapping the corresponding button.

Dialogue & Narrator

• Changed so the "Just a few moves left… make them count." narration is played with a chance after the first time.
• Fixed issue where the Conscience voice over was disabled when using the setting “DIALOGUES > Narrator”.
• Fixed issue where Conscience characters would perform their animations in slow motion.
• Fixed first narrator voice line after character presentation in child village not playing when gibberish was disabled.
• Fixed dev-marker erroneously appearing in Popsi’s dialogue text.

Combat

• Added optional Lock-on targeting for melee combat.
• Added attack animation-canceling to certain moves by using dodge.
• Added ability for smaller enemies to throw rocks at the player when mounted.
• Added chance for the player to be knocked off their mount when hit.
• Added fleeing behavior to player mounts when in combat.
• Tweaked the Porky Puff double-boulder throw attack. Now it’s possible to dodge the second rock after being hit by the first one.
• Fixed issue where the player could get stuck in grab animations.
• Fixed Invincibility perk damage multiplier.
• Fixed Stimulus perk damage multiplier.
• Fixed cases where Airstrike would sometimes miss when using Klonkfist.
• Fixed jump attack preventing ranged attacks while airstriking.
• Fixed Rad Wisps being spawned while in menus.
• Fixed Lupa-Lupin camp intro cinematic being played when in combat
• Fixed issue where escorted characters were attempting to target already defeated enemies.
• Fixed issue which caused Pichu goons to only use kick attacks. Now they use their Pichu Nanchuks properly.
• Fixed issue where rocks thrown using Telekinesis would not deal damage.
• Fixed critical hits from abilities not showing red damage numbers.

User Interface

• Added indicators for completed area objectives on the Map.
• Added pinned indicator to items used in outfits.
• Fixed equipped indicator showing incorrect item after selling another item.
• Added paused playtime when in the system menu or when the game is deactivated.
• Added initial quest tab selection which opens either “Main” or “Side” quest tab based on the tracked quest.
• Fixed overlapping UI when changing tab directly after fast travel.
• Updated the transport menu with smoother transitions and removed the camera fades in-between selections.
• Fixed issue where pressing the map button would not close the map and bring you back to the game.
• Fixed percent stats not being capped at 100%.
• Fixed XP bar not being hidden when at max level.

Quests

• Fixed MkTon sometimes not spawning when talking to Gizmo.
• Fixed "Lupa-Lupin's Lair" not being completable after loading a save.
• Fixed issue where bandit camp quests sometimes would not be completed.
• Fixed issue where bandit camp captains sometimes would not spawn.
• Fixed issue where Lotus Captain quest could be given multiple times which prevented consecutive quest copies from being completed.
• Fixed issue where defeating Bompa Bonker before starting the corresponding quest would prevent the player from completing the quest after saving and loading.
• Fixed issue where some unique quest rewards did not get correct Material and Quality, resulting in them sometimes not having correct stats.
• Fixed puzzles being usable through walls using Klonkfist.
• Fixed issue where the player could change the allied tribe after meeting with either Gizmo, Goop, Whiz or Noko although the first outpost hadn't been captured.
• Fixed Batnam-nam being able to receive player damage.
• Fixed “Eyes on the Prize” which couldn't be completed after loading a save game.
• Fixed issue where the player could get stuck during an outpost capture when using the Klonkfist on the oil tanks.
• Fixed issue where the player was able to interact with a certain Lumen Shrine during combat.
• Fixed issue where all rival tribe weapons were not claimable when using tribewar shortcut.

New Game+

• Added modifiers which somewhat increase the difficulty after starting a NG+ game and also additionally for each new subsequent NG+ loop.
• Fixed Aura score not being reset when starting a NG+ game.
• Fixed Plank Resources being reset when starting a NG+ game.

World

• Added respawning enemies to some areas.
• Increased spawn rate for random encounters.
• Moved wrecked-ship to the correct Map location.
• Fixed Bio Nucleus 6D area objectives not being completable.
• Removed locked door blocking access to area objectives in Bangshelter 9H.
• Fixed a car that couldn't be looted in Bangshelter 3J.
• Fixed a door in Bangshelter 2G so the Anti-Radiation suit can be received.

Crash Fixes

• Fixed crash when a character receives damage.
• Fixed crash when player is forced to exit the MkTon.
• Fixed crash when player climbs up on an enemy.
• Fixed crash when launching towards an enemy.
• Fixed crash with narrator commentary.

Miscellaneous

• Fixed appearance not being reset when reverting character mutation changes.
• Fixed issue causing the player to take hazard damage while appearing to have maximum resistance.
• Removed bright spots from the post process that were always visible.
• Fixed missing "EXTREME" label on extreme difficulty save files.
• Fixed issue where Brogg could choke on Gullblimp and cause the player to become stuck.
• Fixed issue which allowed Fungi to be spawned on oil.
• Fixed some attack sounds having incorrect volume.
• Increased free-fall duration needed for mounts and the player to trigger a hard landing.
• Fixed jitter during mounting animation.
• Fixed issue where the MkTon door at gizmo sometimes would be incorrectly closed.
• Fixed issue where reload animations would trigger and conflict during cinematics.
• Fixed issue where an incorrect prompt was shown when using the Klonkfist on moth nests.

Biomutant is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

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Source: Steam