When Biomutant was announced in 2017, we were impressed by the wonderfully weird world Experiment 101, which was founded by ex-Avalanche Studios employees, was pitching. That game was originally set to release in 2018, but that year came and went with not much info from the Swedish development studio. Now that we're in 2021, Experiment 101 and publisher THQ Nordic have finally announced a release date for Biomutant: May 25. But what took so long, and why did the developer stay so quiet for much of that span?

In a recent interview with IGN, studio head Stefan Ljungqvist said that much of it had to do with the scope of the project contrasting with the size of the team. The game features a dense map full of NPCs, outposts, and bizarre creatures to encounter, as well as a mutating protagonist, so even if the world itself isn't massive when compared to the size of other open-world maps, it's an ambitious project. "It's a big game, a big bite for 20 people to chew off," Ljungqvist said.

While open-world games are often ambitious by definition, Ljungqvist said that the script kept growing, making it an increasingly more difficult component. "If you look at the script, by the end of 2019 I think it was about 80-85,000 words. Pretty much a novel," he said. "But in the final game, it's closer to 250,000 words. That was a big thing, to wrap that script."

On top of that, Ljungqvist said much of the effort has been centered on polishing and quality assurance. "It's been a huge amount of work for QA, because it's not easy in an open-world game to find them," he said. "And then once they've been found, we have to fix them, and that's put some additional challenge on us, being a small team."

Ljungqvist also touched on other topics within the interview, including why the team decided to release on last-gen platforms instead of the new PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. You can learn more about that and other topics by reading the full interview on IGN. 

Biomutant comes to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on May 25. To read more about Biomutant, check out our impressions from Gamescom 2018.

[Source: IGN]

The long-awaited “Snyder Cut” of 2017’s Justice League is arriving March 18 to HBO Max. Director Zack Snyder shared the news on Twitter today, giving fans of the fabled re-release a light at the end of the tunnel.  

For those not in the know, Snyder was originally at the helm of Justice League before his daughter’s tragic suicide forced him to step down during post-production. Director Joss Whedon took over production of the troubled film, creating the final version that was largely panned by fans and critics alike when it released in November 2017. 

Since then, fans petitioned for the release of the “Snyder Cut”, Zack Snyder’s version of the film containing scenes that had been cut/altered after Whedon took over. After spending years gaining traction online, Warner Bros. announced in May of last year that the Snyder Cut would indeed happen and release exclusively to HBO Max. Since this version features a fair amount of both cut and entirely new content, the film tops at a whopping four hours, which you can watch all at once or as a four-part miniseries. Justice League centers on Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and other heroes in DC's pantheon fighting to protect Earth from an invading Steppenwolf, as well as the newly included De Saad and Darkseid. 

2021 is an important year for HBO Max given that Warner Bros. entire slate of films will debut simultaneously in theaters as well as on the streaming service. One of those film’s is April’s Mortal Kombat, and it'll be interesting to see how the experiment pays off and the effects it has on the already struggling theater industry. There are also rumors that a live-action Harry Potter TV series might be in the works as well. 

Are you excited for Zack Snyder’s Justice League? Let us know in the comments!