I never played Journey to the Savage Planet, but if my experience with Revenge of the Savage Planet is anything to go by, I may well have missed out.
Revenge of the Savage Planet is the product of Raccoon Logic, a newly minted developer who were previously known as Typhoon Studios (credited with the original game) prior to their acquisition and closure by Stadia Games and Entertainment. Aside from a (somewhat understandable) simmering hatred of all things corporate that occasionally threatens to bubble over, its a relentlessly colourful and enjoyable experience that burns bright, but perhaps runs out of fuel too quickly.
With solo and both online or split-screen cooperative play available, Revenge of the Savage Planet sets the player(s) up as the first colonist(s) on a newly discovered, distant and dangerous planet. Following a hundred years of travel, the company we worked for has been acquired and then mothballed (sound familiar) effectively leaving us stranded. Thankfully, there’s enough space debris kicking around to potentially enable a return mission — but as you’ve probably guessed, you’re going to need to put in the work to bring it all together.
Revenge of the Savage Planet opens with a considerable number of tutorial missions that made it feel a bit intense and rushed. We learn about our 3D printer, about how to collect coils for it and what other materials it uses. We find berries that permanently boost our health, we get a whip that allows us to catch the local wildlife and new buildings fall pre-fabricated from the sky ready to house them. There’s a grappling hook, a gun, a jet pack, a hose that initially blasts water and then gets upgraded to shoot all sorts of stuff. There is bait, there are grenades and so it goes on…
Somehow, this all happens in about the first hour or so – and I found the relentless pace to be both alienating (pun intended) and enthralling. Discoveries in Revenge of the Savage Planet felt quite real and impactful — with very immediate and tangible benefits. It feels a bit like a Metroidvania game, but where those games typically allow you to see what you can’t reach and force you to come back later, as often as not, Revenge of the Savage Planet let’s you see it, makes you want it and then ten minutes later — let’s you have it.
The pace of discovery certainly slows over time, but never fades away completely. The most exciting new tools come early, and I think on reflection I actually appreciated that, but I still enjoyed the small iterative improvements you can make to those core tools. A more powerful gun? Sure. A better grappling hook? Why not? But Revenge of the Savage Planet wouldn’t work if the four planets you get to visit weren’t interesting enough to warrant it. 
With very different biomes to explore in each world and level design that features tremendous verticality, Revenge of the Savage Planet certainly offers the feeling that you’re exploring diverse, alien worlds that each have their own personality. Unfortunately, the fact that there are several species that seem smattered across several planets in an almost venn-diagram formation (with no regard to the habitats on offer) does diminish this feeling a little. There’s a sense that loads of effort went into the worlds and how you traverse them, whilst a little bit less time, care or budget went into the creatures that would live there.
Even so, Revenge of the Savage Planet is pretty much relentlessly enjoyable thanks to its attitude, its colour palette and its mechanisms. I don’t know if it was intended or not, but it’s full of areas that the player(s) can reach through use of the tools on offer — many of which feel like places you probably shouldn’t go, yet somehow you’re rewarded for getting there anyway. There are so many little bonuses hidden up high peaks or behind rocky outcrops and there’s almost always a proper way to get there — but it doesn’t care if you do so the right way or the wrong way, you get the goods all the same.
If there’s a negative to call out with it, it is perhaps that this cute little game is all a bit of a sugar rush. Early treasures come so thick and fast that there’s no way the mid to late game can keep up. I said earlier that I didn’t mind this — and that’s because there’s a brief window in between the first few hours (that fly by) and the latter few (that drag) where you can just explore the game and see what it has to offer. By the end though, I was ready for it to finish.
A fun solo game and an even better couch co-operative experience, Revenge of the Savage Planet is a ton of fun, albeit for a relatively short amount of time. With a bit of DLC, a few patches and perhaps a little more creature variety, it could still be great. Whether you get it on Gamepass or perhaps as part of a future sale, I’d strongly recommend spending a few hours with Revenge of the Savage Planet and I’m now quite tempted to go back and revisit the original game.
Revenge of the Savage Planet is available on Xbox, PS5 and PC.
