Since its inception, Mutant was developed as one large set. It had some clear goals but a lot of fuzziness around the edges. In 2024, the decision was made to split the set and standard into bundles - discrete sections of emoji that can be combined together.
Mutant has emoji symbols designed to cater to different groups of people. Not everyone wants or needs all of them. Furthermore, Mutant Form has a very high number of emoji because of its large number of modifier combinations which creates a substantial tradeoff in various situations. So bundles allow people to select what they need for their use case while still creating a consistent standard to facilitate those experiences.
Mutant Core is the only essential bundle - containing Mutant's unique perspective on Unicode Standard emoji. Other bundles from the set can then be added on for extra communicative functionality.
Standardised extensions to Mutant Core.
- Mutant Spectrum - flags and symbols catering to the queer community.
- Mutant Form - modifiers, symbols and expressions catering to furries and those who use non-human representations of themselves.
A place for existing emoji that are not covered by Mutant Standard.
- Mutant Extra - assorted symbols and objects for various functions.
Bundles do not share emoji, so every non-Core bundle is a clean addition to Mutant Core.
Wherever possible, a group of emoji concerning one particular subject area or purpose would be in one bundle, but because many of Mutant's non-standard emoji are extensions of emoji that already exist in Unicode, intersections are inevitable.
Certain groups of emoji can be shared between bundles, but only ever a non-Core bundle and Core. Non-Core bundles do not share groups of emoji.
For instance, the d6 (dice) emoji is in Mutant Core. For the other dice shapes (d4, d6, etc.), you can add Mutant Extra. You cannot get all of the dice by downloading a single bundle.
While these cases of having to download 2 bundles to get all of a particular subject range aren't ideal, I took a look at other options and consulted with developers and we collectively decided this was the least difficult way to split emoji.
Mutant emoji and Mutant Standard are produced as one to prevent any name/codepoint collisions and to let additions naturally fit together as best as possible.