Revenge of the Savage Planet Review
Raccoon Logic’s sequel to Journey to the Savage Planet builds on the first game in the perfect way.
Revenge of the Savage Planet. Raccoon Logic Studios
In Revenge of the Savage Planet, you’re an intergalactic explorer who lands on an alien world after 100 years in cryosleep. Your former employer, Kindred Aerospace, was bought by megacorporation Alta in a bid to create colonies in space. Sometime during your journey, Alta decided that this is too difficult, scrapped the program, and made you redundant—not something you’d like to discover when you’re stranded in space. To make matters worse, your gear is nowhere to be seen. While on the surface it looks like a survival/crafting game, Revenge plays more like a broad Metroidvania thanks to the abundance of the few resources you need to fabricate upgrades and the focus on exploration.
The premise of this comedy sci-fi game and sequel to Journey to the Savage Planet parallels the experience of its developers. Soon before the first game’s January 2020 release, Google acquired developers Typhoon Studios to make them a first-party studio for the now discontinued Stadia service. Just over a year later, the day the team launched the Stadia version of Journey, Google shuttered Stadia Games and Entertainment and fired everyone, having decided to abandon first-party development.
Revenge of the Savage Planet. Raccoon Logic Studios
Typhoon Studios’ founders formed a new company in Montreal, Raccoon Logic Studios, staffed it with most of the former team, and reacquired the intellectual property (IP) from Google to develop the sequel. The game’s corporate culture satire is a not-so-subtle and well-deserved dig at Google and its cluelessness in shepherding game development.
Revenge of the Savage Planet shifts to a third-person perspective from the previous game’s first-person gameplay, which lends itself far better to the platforming and combat challenges. I was happy to see this change. Traversal feels great, especially as you find new tools and upgrades. My favorite is the laser whip, which only gets more fun as the game progresses. Its grappling abilities improve, eventually letting you grapple your companion drone and launch yourself into the air instead of only using fixed grappling points. Chaining jumps with grapples and laser rail grinds to fly through the air was pure joy.
Combat relies on an upgradable gun, which never felt very powerful. It fires single shots—eventually charge shots—and overheats quickly. Success in battle requires ensuring you hit enemy weak spots you discover when scanning each species. Hitting the weak spots and stunning creatures allows you to use your laser whip to lasso and capture them for study, sometimes a better option than fighting them to the end. There are other options, such as plant grenades or different kinds of goop you can fire with a secondary weapon, but I rarely used these, instead reserving them mostly for use on the environment.
Combat was mostly a distraction from the best part of the game: exploration. I loved the open-world Metroidvania level design in Revenge; the mainline quests and optional missions take you all over the game’s four planets, which are filled with secrets to find. I had a blast collecting all the 3D printer spools, alien goo health upgrades, and costume pieces. While some are in plain view and require players to find a path, many are hidden behind clever puzzles that always felt rewarding to solve using your various tools. The game’s map helpfully labels collectibles with a lock icon if you don’t have the gear you need to reach them. This feature prevented much frustration and helped me save a lot of time.
Revenge of the Savage Planet. Raccoon Logic Studios
I played the entire campaign in couch co-op, which worked wonderfully. It made some combat encounters slightly easier and helped solve some timed puzzles. But really, it’s not going to make the game that much easier; I just think playing with a buddy makes the game even more fun. It would have been nice if there had been some extra content that took advantage of multiplayer.
Revenge is a beautiful-looking game. The Unreal 5 graphics are colorful and full of texture and detail, making the worlds you explore feel alive and each biome feel completely unique. Every living creature in the game, including the player, is full of personality thanks to fantastic design and expressive, exaggerated animation. Watching the player’s walk and run animations never got old; I just loved that cartoon strut. Creature designs are often repeated between the game’s worlds, which is understandable but slightly disappointing.
Revenge of the Savage Planet. Raccoon Logic Studios
The game’s sense of humor is somewhere between Rick and Morty and Tim and Eric, the latter coming through especially in the game’s many hilarious and sometimes gross in-world commercials, which you’ll see in your space RV base. The game’s writing is genuinely funny, which is an achievement because I could have seen it fall completely flat like in many “funny” games. The satire is vicious and incisive, down to some easy-to-miss jokes such as a throwaway line clearly referencing the OceanGate Titan submersible disaster. This is a game about corporate exploitation and greed, and it doesn’t pull any punches.
Revenge of the Savage Planet. Raccoon Logic Studios
Revenge of the Savage Planet is a fantastic game that’s even more fun with a friend. Its funny, colorful nature, rewarding puzzling, and joyous traversal mechanics made it one of the best gaming experiences I’ve had so far this year. It didn’t overstay its welcome; it took me around 18 hours to complete most quests and find nearly all the collectibles. This is a must-play.
Revenge of the Savage Planet is available now on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S (currently included in Game Pass).
Overall Score: 9/10
Played on: PS5
