Journey to the Savage Planet was a fun and funny game, even better with another person. The first-person adventure game tasked you with scouring a planet as the newest pioneer for Kindred Aerospace. The game was an easy favorite, filled to the brim with satirical stabs at capitalism with a retrofuturistic vibe. The first game was originally developed by Typhoon Studio (under Google) and published by 505 Games. The game’s sequel, Revenge of the Savage Planet, has more than a few new tricks up its sleeves and is self-published by Raccoon Logic Studios, the games studio that former Typhoon Studio developers created after Stadia Games and Entertainment closed it.
Revenge of the Savage Planet boasts the same humor as the first, though doubling down on its capitalist potshots that can only come for a studio that escaped its own megacorp overlord. In this sequel, the perspective is now third-person, and Atla Interglobal has acquired Kindred Aerospace. Sticking with the love of golden-age sci-fi, Raccoon Logic isn’t holding anything back.
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The official game synopsis captures the game’s theme better than I could: “In a future knocked off its axis by corporate greed and stupidity, you have been made redundant and abandoned on the far edge of space with little gear and no safety net. You must explore every nook and cranny, collect dozens of upgrades, and turn over every mysterious alien rock if you want to get revenge on your former employer and return to Earth.”
Revenge of the Savage Planet has the same humor, mechanics, and vibrancy. Oh, and it still forces you to murder the cutest creatures in the galaxy to get off the planet. This time, you will travel to four large worlds and explore the different biomes, flora, and fauna across the alien landscapes. The main objective remains the same-at least if you’re a completionist like me-scan everything.
Revenge of the Savage Planet has a vibrant world you crave to catalog.
Using your Scanner frequently is for your benefit. It shows your objectives, gives you valuable information on the environment to help you solve environmental puzzles, and has some of the best jokes. Seriously. As much as the narration coming from your bot companion is hilarious in its dark comedy and observational humor, the description of alien creatures is absolutely something to write home about. Or write to y’all about it.
The inventive ways the development team has envisioned the creature descriptions highlight their passion for the worlds they’re bringing to life. Every inch of the planets we played with in the hands-on preview was worth reading about and ultimately laughing about, too.
The world you scan also has a stand-out signature vibrancy. The hyper-stylized worlds push up against live-action commercials that make the eccentric corporate ridicule all the more entertaining. But the world is only as good as the traversal mechanics to navigate it.
In the tutorial section, you acquire the double jump from the start and quickly learn that platforming is central to the game. An open adventure game that embodies foundational Metroidvania mechanics, Revenge of the Savage Planet uses many challenges that each push you to interact with and explore the world differently. Solving environmental puzzles frees loot crates. Some ask you to connect two points using a goo canister, others make you find a passage through invisible walls, and others want you to platform to great heights.
Outside of exploring the environment and solving puzzles along the way, as we left the first planet to explore what else the game’s alien worlds had to offer, we also looked at familiar combat puzzles. While the mechanics were extremely simple to slip back into, the environmental hazards and the need to parry in this specific combat puzzle made it a layered experience. With additional weapons and equipment, the game seems to offer a large incentive to retrace your steps to keep finding more and more.
I cleared the hands-on demo fairly easily, but it wasn’t because the game was too easy. It was because jumping into Revenge of the Savage Planet was like getting back on a horse. I knew how to figure out the world and navigate it, and some hallmarks of the first game, like crystalline structures, stat-increasing goo, and trees that give life regen-fruit, meant that I knew exactly what paths to take. Or, more specifically, it narrowed my options down.
But knowing a game that I haven’t played in four years is a testament to how sticky the combat and traversal were in it. Raccoon Logic Studios understood that they should not fix what wasn’t broken. Still, the core game loop has also clearly grown in scope. With more planets and more creatures come more challenges. Here, you can capture creatures, swim in lakes, splunk through caves, platform up cliffs, and explore every inch of the planets. There is simply more to do in Revenge of the Savage Planet, and that was clear in just 30 minutes of playtime.
Additionally, with the inclusion of new weapons, new platforming opportunities arise. In addition to stomping, dodging, sliding, running, and jumping, a new electric whip adds a melee tool from a distance and also opens up new paths for you to explore. Each area has been crafted to be explored more than once. Instead, each new item you acquire allows you to return, find more, and solve puzzles you couldn’t before.
Playing with a character that had nearly every skill and weapon unlocked, it was easy to get a sense of just how much you need in one kit to explore one area to the fullest. The planet pushes you to learn and find more to catalog and complete experiments to increase your science as you build your habitat from a crashed ship to the trailer of your dreams.
The new game loop is larger than the last and equally entertaining.
Your habitat and the trailer in it can also be transformed. Sure, it’s cool that you can pick a new outfit and pick a color palette that suits your taste, but Revenge of the Savage Planet adds what every game needs: housing customization. While the first game prioritized resources, the sequel adds in money. Collect cash boxes that have flown out of crashing ships and save or spend them irresponsibly.
Adding a currency system to a game about an aerospace company that acquired and has made you redundant is an addition that understands the assignment. You can build a kitchen, game room, and the like in an empty trailer if you have the money for it. This adds more investment into exploring the world and pushes you back out into the world even after you pick up a singular loot crate or beat a boss. Additionally, you can lasso and capture different alien creatures to add them to your habitat, which is a good change of pace from having to shoot them all.
Truthfully, Racoon Logic nails making Revenge of the Savage Planet more detailed than the first game without losing anything that made it special. With a new third-person perspective, more weaponry, more planets, and an entire customization and decoration system, it’s clear that the game loop has widened. But this sequel hasn’t lost any of the charm that comes from a quick wit and satire.
Revenge of the Savage Planet is built on a foundation of snark, cute round creatures, a hatred of corporations, and now that it’s self-published, a creative liberation that is noticeable from the game’s opening commercial. An open Metroidvania with sticky gameplay all around, Revenge of the Savage Planet is a science fiction joy that only left me with one regret: I haven’t played it co-op yet.
Revenge of the Savage Planet will be released in May 2025.
