Casual and fun exploration in Revenge of the Savage Planet | Practical inspection

While in Los Angeles Game prizesI had the opportunity to go to some trailers in the parking lot. There, once I booted them up, I was able to preview a nice new game, Revenge of the savage planet.

Raccoon Logic’s satirical sci-fi adventure is coming in May 2025 for PC and consoles. The Montreal-based game studio showcased the game as part of its PC Gaming Showcase and released a new trailer showing the return of Martin Tweed, CEO of Kindred Aerospace.

The game is a sequel to Journey to the Savage Planet, which debuted in 2020 from publisher 505 Games. That game was a rollercoaster ride. This was developer Typhoon Studios’ first project, initiated by Alex Hutchinson, game director for Assassin’s Creed III and Far Cry 4 at Ubisoft. It was a rare, brightly colored comedy sci-fi adventure game inspired by Men in Black and Ghostbusters. In the game, you are sent to explore a planet and see if it is suitable for human habitation.

Google acquired Typhoon Studios in 2019 and then launched Journey to the Savage Planet on Google Stadia, its ill-fated cloud gaming service. On launch day on February 1, 2021, Google also shut down Typhoon. The former members of Typhoon then started Raccoon Logic in August 2021 and subsequently acquired the intellectual property rights to Savage Planet. Raccoon Logic was built by approximately 30 people, received funding from Tencent, and designed the new game for less than $10 million.

Tweed’s new enemy is Gunther Harrison, CEO of Alta Interglobal, a competitor to Kindred Aerospace. Once again, a scientist is sent to explore and colonize a new planet, but midway through the journey the scientist is expelled by Alta Interglobal, which has decided that the task of colonizing a distant star system is too costly. The ship then crashes on the new planet. After your company abandons you, your mission is to survive and find your way back home again.

Practical inspection

I started the tutorial and it was very easy to master. Given the colorful environment, I had to search for resources from animals, plants, raw materials, etc. Then I put them back in the 3D printer and printed stuff. The planet is full of animals and comical creatures. There is a lot of gunk that can hinder you as you travel through it.

You’ve learned how to use the scanner, which can tell you what you’re dealing with and how it could be useful to you. You can step on small creatures and they turn into green goo. Some creatures have resources. You can turn on these ball-like creatures called Brainards and watch them bounce and go. Whenever I had a task to make something with the 3D printer, a navigation bar would pop into view so I could search for the items I needed. If I got lost, I had to tap the right stick to see where my target was.

After learning the tutorial, I was taken to a scene mid-game, where I could now jump away and climb. Crossing the planet with its light gravity, I jumped through the air from one large rock to another. I encountered some purple wolf-like creatures that got angry at me. They chased me for a long time and I had to keep jumping to escape. I thought they were tired of chasing me but they still chased me. Then I moved to the top of the rock and jumped on their heads. It turned out that this was their weak point.

An interesting thing is that there is more than one planet you can visit in this game, which makes the name of the game seem a little inaccurate. In fact, you have to survive on four brutal planets and clear everything you find on them. Plants are very different on all planets.

When it comes to aliens, you can use your gun to shoot them or capture them with a lasso. You can pick them up and put them in the pens. I enjoyed the game, its funny colors and cute sense of humour. Looking forward to seeing more.

Interview with the game designer

After I finished the demo, I interviewed Stephen Masters, game designer at Raccoon Logic. He told me that the first game did so well because it was relatively rare as a comedy in a market full of serious games. What is the mission of the sequel?

“We just wanted to do it bigger,” Masters said.

He added: “We wanted to continue the idea of ​​telling a satirical story about the company, have a lot of fun and humor within the game, and also be a little more open. One of our main decisions was to switch from a first-person perspective to a third-person perspective. It allows us to bring in more humor.” On character, and improving some of the platforms you have a little more personality within the character.

When the character runs, he bends his legs and raises his knees high in the air, as if he were walking. Masters said it looks silly but was inspired by people who have to run through waves at the beach.

The game will take approximately 15 to 20 hours of gameplay. Depending on your piloting preferences, Revenge of the Savage Planet can be played solo or co-op (either split-screen/couch co-op or online), with cross-play on different platforms.

Masters said there are two different endings to Journey to the Savage Planet, and this one will have three endings due to multiple narrative threads.

It seems like a lot of work for a team of 30 people with a budget of less than $10 million, but the team has a lot of experience in different companies.

There was a lot of disruption in the matches. AI has not been helpful in the project so far. But somehow, this 30-person studio is doing well.

“We’re really focused on keeping a lean machine. We’re not trying to scale out and create another game-as-a-service for 500 people. We just wanted to do something small and focused that really represented something we wanted to play, and hopefully resonated with our players.”

The team has been testing a lot of the game with a regular group of players.

“We are all very passionate and we all know our business,” Masters said. “We are able to execute at a much faster pace but also in a more relaxed way.”