BioEden Switch 2 Review
Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2
I am a big fan of simulation games and world builders, and the idea of restoring a desolate world and bringing back fauna and flora really appeals to my soul. So will BioEden give me the opportunity to thrive, or will my plant-killing tendencies destroy all hope? What’s it like? Choose your Guild, prep your biome and get ready to analyse DNA as we review BioEden on Nintendo Switch 2.
The intro of this game brings forward the threat of our imminent destruction, and we are tasked with reviving a dying world, in the hope that if we restore it and bring back extinct animals, we may figure out what went wrong and save ourselves. You are given a brief outline of the Guilds that are all working towards this goal and, in what I thought was an interesting take, the guild type you choose influences the difficulty of your playthrough. You have the Training Guild for Newbies, Technology for a balanced playthrough, Nature for restoring the planet, Exploration for fast progression, Restoration for recycling with low resources and Mystic for a more relaxed playthrough. I ultimately opted for the Training Guild to begin, with the plan to return again for one of the other guilds once I understood the gameplay, which was so helpful and worked a treat for me.
BioEden will have you analysing DNA to unlock extinct animals, and you will have to create the right type of biome for them to live, thrive and ultimately breed in. You balance their dietary requirements with their temperature requirements and their humidity requirements. You will also be managing their population with the introduction of carnivorous varieties to reduce the population of the ever-breeding herbivores. Ensuring all biomes are balanced. Although slightly alien in design and name, the animals will all be fairly familiar to you, such as rabbits, frogs, owls, squirrels and tiger-like creatures. Each variety requires its own habitat and food source within the shared biome. But in order to build those, you need to source minerals while managing access to power and water. You’ll also unlock a variety of dome biomes such as forests, jungles, prairie, tundra, savannah, etc and world biomes that are much the same but the polluted versions such as the Red Forest, Yellow Desert, Burnt Tundra and Poisonous Wetlands. Although not incredibly detailed, they are detailed enough to give you a clear sense of the difference between each one. Each item you place has an impact on the environment, and you are quickly taught to recycle your waste miners to reduce your impact. Slowly, you’ll spread throughout the world, replacing pollution with restoration, and the visual impact of this is quite thrilling as your world turns from red, grey, brown muck into vibrant green and crystal-clear water.
The learning curve on the controls can be quite daunting and it took me a minute to figure out what exactly I was doing, and the use of the D pad was used heavily to navigate through the build menus. The learning curve wasn’t limited to the controls; I even had to restart once on the training level, as I’d opted for the wrong mineral type and was then unable to build my solar, which meant I couldn’t progress. I found out later you can reclaim the item to get 100% of your resources returned, which becomes such a valuable tool. Along the same lines, there were a few times I was trying to action something and had to really pause and read the details, because new mechanics would be introduced between the different guilds; trying to open up Jungle level 3 of the Biome Knowledge tree on the Nature Guild playthrough required Biotech points, whereas it was introduced earlier on the Technology Guild playthrough. Same with unexplained perks; for example, every playthrough requires antennas to be connected via power lines except for the Explorers Guild. I only found that out because I got more efficient on each playthrough, chucking down my bigger items to map the cleanest power line track through deposits; I placed the Antenna, and it just started working. It’s really nice to have these differences on each Guild for you to discover. Even though the core gameplay repeats, eventually you will unlock a research lab, and your research points are used to unlock your biome knowledge tree, which in turn unlocks your DNA to analyse for new animal species. I got very quick at establishing water, power, research and focusing on the quests each Guild wanted me to complete.
Interestingly enough, it was cool to see how each Guild progresses. The Technology Guild was quickly pushing ahead with development and tended to be overzealous, causing the pollution to increase more quickly, and you’d quite often be held to task by Darwin, the Primary leader of the Nature Guild, who would impose penalties on you until you brought your pollution down. Although I must say I quite often felt like the pollution was out of my control, and to progress on all playthroughs you have to push the limits. Ironically enough, when you play through with the Nature Guild, Euler, the Primary Maker of the Technology Guild, is the one who tells you off when your pollution levels are getting too high, and the same for each of the Guilds; there is always another Guild to make you toe the line.
However, on each playthrough you’ll learn about the Collective, which will give you different quests as well. As you progress through those quests, you unlock levels, and then you’ll gain access to Antennas, which expand into new biomes and unlock new domes. You’ll also discover Natural Sanctuaries, which a Nature Study hub will generate biotech points from, and Ruins, which a Ruin Study Site will generate Technology points from. You’ll also need them for unlocking your carnivore factory and feeder. These are also used to unlock Herbivore feeders, Lake cleaners and River cleaners (which I found to be the most satisfying clean-up). The game is so engrossing that hours passed and I barely noticed, but a word of warning: there is no auto-save feature, which really caught me out. At around the 9-hour mark, when I was about 2-3 hours into my Technology guild run, the game crashed without warning, and I lost all my progress. Needless to say, that was a tad annoying because by that stage I’d unlocked 2 new biomes and had restored a huge chunk of the map. So consider saving regularly!
Deciding it was too soon to try Technology again, I started on the Nature Guild playthrough. I was half expecting to play much the same map but with different objectives, and instead found myself starting in a poisonous wetland. It was so refreshing; I was instantly intrigued again, and it demonstrated that there is a lot of gameplay here for you to enjoy. The poisonous wetlands had much the same objectives as before, but the reskin of your equipment was so refreshing, and you are also introduced to the Herbarium. The Explorers Guild has you starting in the Purple Crystal Prairie with another reskin. The Restoration has you in the Yellow Desert, and the Mystic Guild has you in the Burnt Tundra, and all of them get a reskin to the guild’s colours. Although the core gameplay in each area is fairly similar, with the need to establish a water source, power, research and then create a liveable place for your animals in their biome, there is still enough variety to keep you engaged for hours, and each playthrough focuses on a different starting animal and what they and the rest of the animals require to be released back into the world.
Having said that, sometimes the game felt quite unforgiving for things that hadn’t been explained, and you are almost put on a time-out. One time, at around 72% pollution, I was hit with a minor sandstorm that had stopped water and solar from working, and I just had to wait through. Meanwhile, I’d been doing everything in my power to be as environmentally friendly as possible, creating minimal electricity lines, mining in patches and recycling anything that wasn’t needed or that had become inadequate. You will also be hit with frost, debris storms and eclipses, which will render some of your machinery unusable during that time. Your progression helps ease the steep learning curve by introducing mechanics like wind turbines, lake restorers and river restorers, which made keeping the pollution levels at bay much more manageable.
BioEden is a diverse and interesting concept, and although at times the graphics were glitchy and would lose their detail, and sometimes animals and items would overlap, overall the mechanics were so engaging that I barely noticed. But when looking back on my gameplay, I could see clearly how janky it looked and how often the detail would be lost. It almost comes across like an older-generation game with its graphics level. Then there were small things, like the cutscene for the introduction of a new species would be completely blocked by a tree you had placed earlier.
Overall, the gameplay is fairly smooth, but I did notice a bit of stuttering started when I had about 40% of the Nature Guild map open, and then it happened periodically on each of my playthroughs the more I unlocked. I was able to quickly move between areas, despite some framerate issues. But there is a bit of pop-in, and a few times my animals didn’t show up. Apart from random crashing that had me losing hours of gameplay, BioEden was an enjoyable game, and I didn’t mind the restart, which was odd for me. I think it may be because there is no real pressure in the game, so it’s an almost zen-like experience where you just build and explore and restore. I’d also learnt to manually save every 10 minutes, or so, so there was never any huge loss of gameplay.
For my Keepers looking into accessibility options, BioEden has a range of colour modes and a UI scale. But as always, I recommend further research to see if BioEden is suitable for your accessibility needs. At just under $33AUD BioEden is a really enjoyable world restoration simulation. There are enough mechanics to keep you engaged for hours, and there is a decided result to show for your work, which rewards your time invested.
BioEden isn’t perfect, and there were certainly moments where it tested my patience, but there’s something wonderfully satisfying about watching a world slowly come back to life because of the work you’ve put into it. I was caught off guard with just how difficult it was to put down. I’d sit down intending to restore one more area, and before I knew it, another few hours had disappeared. For a game about saving the planet, perhaps its greatest achievement is simply making you want to spend more time looking after it. After everything I’ve managed to accidentally kill in my gaming career, that’s no small achievement.
What’s it like? BioEden is like Terra Nil
In the interest of full disclosure, a review copy was provided by the publisher, but this doesn’t influence my score.
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