cormack12
Gold Member
Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/biomutant-heres-why-the-developers-have-been-quiet-for-so-long
The lack of pressure from THQ Nordic to ship Biomutant has been a blessing, as the negative outcome of crunch would be destructive to both individual staff and the studio overall, Ljungqvist explains. “I mean, the studio, we are 20 people and we can't afford to have [staff] leave the studio, or be destroyed during development. That would be devastating.”
“For certain pushes, you might do it in a limited form,” he acknowledges. “But the most important thing is you get paid, which is not common in our industry, crazily enough. And also you get ‘recap time’, because you have to have rest. If you're just doing this constantly for 12-14 hours a day, you will eventually have to pay for it.”
Rather than ship a buggy game, Ljungqvist says Experiment 101 has been taking its time to quietly build a truly finished product.
“It's a big game, a big bite for 20 people to chew off,” says Ljungqvist. While Biomutant’s map may be just eight square kilometers, it’s packed with warring tribes, conquerable outposts, strange creatures to fight, and a protagonist who can mutate into new forms to overcome obstacles. As we’ve said before, Biomutant looks bananas, and its many moving parts are a challenge for the studio behind them.
“At the end of the project, there's only a certain amount of bugs that you can physically fix during the course of the day,” says Ljungqvist. And that’s what much of Biomutant’s last year of development has been: bug squashing.
Ljungqvist is realistic about being able to ship Biomutant completely bug free - a game with so many systems in its sandbox world is difficult to deliver without the odd problem - but he wants it to arrive in players' hands as solid as possible. “Any game is going to ship with [smaller] bugs, but I'm talking about bugs that are truly disruptive to the game experience,” he says. “We don't want to ship with that. I think that's what caused us to just wait until we were ready to do it.”
Ljungqvist notes that, as a result of the expanded script, players can expect a reactive karma system called Aura, which will change NPC dialogue based on your light or dark allegiance. There’s also a better tutorial system, which more effectively communicates Biomutant’s overflowing toy box of ideas. On top of the additional script forming the basis of these features, the game will be available in 13 different languages, 10 of which are fully voiced, and so localisation is required on all those added words. It’s safe to say it’s been a busy year for Experiment 101.
The lack of pressure from THQ Nordic to ship Biomutant has been a blessing, as the negative outcome of crunch would be destructive to both individual staff and the studio overall, Ljungqvist explains. “I mean, the studio, we are 20 people and we can't afford to have [staff] leave the studio, or be destroyed during development. That would be devastating.”
“For certain pushes, you might do it in a limited form,” he acknowledges. “But the most important thing is you get paid, which is not common in our industry, crazily enough. And also you get ‘recap time’, because you have to have rest. If you're just doing this constantly for 12-14 hours a day, you will eventually have to pay for it.”
Rather than ship a buggy game, Ljungqvist says Experiment 101 has been taking its time to quietly build a truly finished product.
“It's a big game, a big bite for 20 people to chew off,” says Ljungqvist. While Biomutant’s map may be just eight square kilometers, it’s packed with warring tribes, conquerable outposts, strange creatures to fight, and a protagonist who can mutate into new forms to overcome obstacles. As we’ve said before, Biomutant looks bananas, and its many moving parts are a challenge for the studio behind them.
“At the end of the project, there's only a certain amount of bugs that you can physically fix during the course of the day,” says Ljungqvist. And that’s what much of Biomutant’s last year of development has been: bug squashing.
Ljungqvist is realistic about being able to ship Biomutant completely bug free - a game with so many systems in its sandbox world is difficult to deliver without the odd problem - but he wants it to arrive in players' hands as solid as possible. “Any game is going to ship with [smaller] bugs, but I'm talking about bugs that are truly disruptive to the game experience,” he says. “We don't want to ship with that. I think that's what caused us to just wait until we were ready to do it.”
Ljungqvist notes that, as a result of the expanded script, players can expect a reactive karma system called Aura, which will change NPC dialogue based on your light or dark allegiance. There’s also a better tutorial system, which more effectively communicates Biomutant’s overflowing toy box of ideas. On top of the additional script forming the basis of these features, the game will be available in 13 different languages, 10 of which are fully voiced, and so localisation is required on all those added words. It’s safe to say it’s been a busy year for Experiment 101.
