Revenge of the Savage Planet
MSRP $50.00
“Revenge of the Savage Planet plays its open-world formula safe, but it shows its teeth where it matters.”
Pros
Sharp satire
Enjoyable exploration
Clever environmental puzzling
Co-op play is a plus
Cons
Story peters out by the tip
By the books construction
Dull fight
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Sound acquainted?
Colonialist mayhem
To make it in at present’s cutthroat world, generally it looks like it’s important to be a taker to outlive. It’s a ruthless mentality that makes the wealthy richer, crooked politicians extra highly effective, and international locations extra bloodthirsty. They take, take, and take till there’s nothing left for the remainder of us, hoarding cash, eliminating jobs, and destroying properties within the identify of self preservation. Perhaps that’s what makes your typical online game so interesting. In one thing like Red Dead Redemption 2, gamers get to stay out a real energy fantasy: one the place a world is theirs to take. Animals exist to be skinned, vegetation to be plucked, and corpses to be looted. Even in video games the place we’re meant to be the “good guy,” we’re typically embodying the world of the worst. We develop into pure disasters that ravage worlds till we select to cease taking part in.
Revenge of the Savage Planet takes that subtext and mines it for satirical gold, simply as its hero smashes each rock in sight looking for valuable metals. Building on the sci-fi comedy of 2020’s Journey to the Savage Planet, developer Raccoon Logic solely will get extra specific about its targets whereas shifting the collection from a Metroid Prime homage to a third-person journey sport that hides righteous anger behind irreverence. When you don’t have the facility to be a real taker, you’ll be able to at the very least take no prisoners.
Though its story in the end feels unfocused and its one-note motion leaves it missing in identification, Revenge of the Savage Planet succeeds as a sci-fi romp. It lets gamers free right into a collection of interplanetary playgrounds designed to be sucked dry by a company drone tasked with turning into a bully. It’s a captivating slice of darkish comedy that’s maybe not imply sufficient to completely land its level.
Sound acquainted?
It doesn’t take lengthy for Revenge of the Savage Planet to indicate its tooth. Upon beginning my journey, I’m greeted by a company orientation video. A peppy vice chairman tells me that I’m now a member of Alta Interglobal, a holdings firm that has acquired my earlier employer, Kindred Aerospace. As a part of the brand new household, my job is to be a part of an intergalactic colonization mission. Once I unfreeze from my cryopod after a century of sleep, I’ll be dropped on a planet with a habitat and tasked with making a livable neighborhood that Alta can later fill with inhabitants.
That’s adopted instantly by a second video informing me that I’ve been fired whereas asleep, as Alta has axed the whole thing of the Kindred workers post-acquisition.
Revenge of the Savage Planet in the end goals for the irreverence of an Adult Swim present.
That setup will probably sound acquainted to you in any variety of contexts. Most not too long ago, it’s the story of media holdings firm Valnet buying gaming web site Polygon, solely to right away intestine the vast majority of its workers. If something in regards to the Savage Planet collection’ developer, although, you’ll acknowledge a extra private goal for Racoon Logic. Following the discharge of Journey to the Savage Planet, the studio was purchased by Google as a part of its short-lived Stadia initiative. Google would shut down Racoon Logic (then referred to as Typhoon Studios) only a few years later earlier than it may even produce a sport. That trauma may be very clearly on the heart of this sequel, with Alta standing in because the face of company incompetence.
The story is at its greatest when it tugs on that thread. One working sidequest has me uncovering Alta’s soiled laundry, taking what I think about are thinly veiled photographs at Google’s personal points behind the scenes. Less profitable is the place the narrative in the end finally ends up. The stretch as much as the ultimate battle takes a left-turn right into a meta-commentary about sport design that feels solely disconnected from the Alta story. It’s an underwhelming conclusion that leaves me questioning if all the company satire earlier than it’s there primarily as an inside joke for the builders (I can’t totally blame them; I’d leap on the alternative to get my simply desserts in opposition to my worst bosses too).
Raccoon Logic
Don’t take any of it too severely. Revenge of the Savage Planet in the end goals for the irreverence of an Adult Swim present. in the end goals for the irreverence of an Adult Swim present. There’s a world referred to as Nuflorida. My habitat is crammed with excessive commercials that really feel like they have been pulled out of a Tim and Eric episode. It options an authentic music about pissing on the corporate dime. As mild as its jabs might really feel at instances, it nonetheless lands loads of little hits that obtained some constant chuckles out of me.
Colonialist mayhem
If you’re nonetheless searching for extra depth, Revenge of the Savage Planet is most useful as a broad satire on the world’s worst C-words: colonialism and consumerism. As a stranded Kindred worker skilled to suck planets dry, every open-world space I go to is a sweet store that’s mine for the taking. The premise isn’t something new: Each planet is crammed with assets to mine, map actions to examine off my record till there are none left, and animals to analysis — or kick till they explode right into a inexperienced mist. Everything I collect will be introduced again to the pc at my habitat and run via a 3D printer to get new upgrades for my gun, leap pack, and extra. The extra of a jerk I’m, the extra effectively I can bully the native wildlife and hoard assets.
If the primary Savage Planet sport was a spoof of Metroid Prime, imagining Samus Aran as a complete dick out to disrupt Tallon IV’s peace, the sequel is extra of a riff on Subnautica. It’s not a survival sport, nevertheless it does play with some related concepts. I would like to assemble up assets and safely return them to my base to 3D print new gear, craft outfits, or make furnishings to embellish my habitat. If I die earlier than I get dwelling, I’ll want to return out and decide all of it up once more. Is it proper to shoot an lovely little alien racoon simply so I can have a pool desk? That’s what Revenge of the Savage Planet asks via its gleeful cartoon mischief. My little house man positive doesn’t appear too upset about it, as he joyfully wobbles round and punts critters like soccer balls.
A a pleasant sequel that maybe may have benefitted from being somewhat meaner.
Naturally, Raccoon Logic will get to have its cake and eat it too. Even if it’s classifiable as parody, it nonetheless performs its open-world exploration straight a lot of the time. I get new gizmos that permit me to grapple as much as cliffs, grind on rails, swim underwater, and extra. I ultimately acquire the facility to soften amber blockades with goo bombs so I can get chow down on an egg and get a well being improve. It’s a serviceable, if somewhat boilerplate, Metroid-adjacent hook, nevertheless it nonetheless in the end goals to be a slice of lighthearted enjoyable that may be loved or with a buddy in co-op play. Maybe that’s why the story stops wanting actually pulling the massive weapons out: Raccoon Logic remains to be concerned about making the sort of sport it’s poking enjoyable at.
I don’t imply that as a lot of a knock right here; that’s simply the language of such a style online game. If something, the facility fantasy isn’t robust sufficient to intoxicate and poison me. Combat is especially weak, as my major weapon is a dinky pea shooter laser. Most enemies simply must be taken down by peppering them with dinky photographs, and upgrades like dodge rolls barely cost that. I can scan critters to search out their weak spots and assault for additional stun injury, however even its by the books boss battles by no means really feel all too thrilling. If you’re going to make me really feel like an influence hungry prick, at the very least dial up the absurdity to tempt me down the trail of violence.
Sometimes Raccoon Logic’s coronary heart looks like its extra in crafting enjoyable little environmental puzzles than colonialist destruction. My favourite gameplay moments have me utilizing conductive goo to hold an electrified mushroom’s cost to a closed door, or navigating an invisible maze by spraying inexperienced goop to disclose the place the partitions are. There’s a honest pleasure in determining how the handful of alien planets work, from a worm-filled desert to a multi-level mountain. Journey to the Savage Planet‘s Metroid Prime-inspired scan visor returns too and remains a highlight, allowing me to catalogue every plant and critter I find. I’m torn between being a researcher and a menace; the previous is extra attractive, however the latter drives the satire.
Racoon Logic
I’m left with a pleasant sequel that maybe may have benefitted from being somewhat meaner. In each Savage Planet video games, I discover myself wishing that Raccoon Logic would actually let me have it. Allow me to essentially screw these alien worlds up and punt me into the stratosphere as soon as I’ve crossed too many traces. But then, I’d be a scapegoat, wouldn’t I? It’s like when The Last of Us scolds gamers for finishing up acts of scripted violence that they’ll’t keep away from. I’m no taker; I’m simply making an attempt to outlive within the kill or be killed atmosphere that the builders have positioned me in. I can empathize with my little spaceman via that lens. He’s only a jester in Alta’s company circus, simply as Raccoon Logic was a cute plaything to Google.
Perhaps we’re all somewhat innocent for enjoying right into a world that’s designed as a slapstick colosseum that we’re pressured to compete in. And if we’re all clowns to the world’s strongest forces, perhaps it’s time to vary which butts we’re punting into the solar.
Revenge of the Savage Planet was examined on PC and Steam Deck OLED.