While in Los Angeles for The Game Awards, I had a chance to go to some trailers in a parking lot. There, once they got the power on, I was able to preview a cute new game, Revenge of the Savage Planet.
The satirical sci-fi adventures is coming from Raccoon Logic in May 2025 for the PC and consoles. The Montreal-based game studio showed off the game as part of the PC gaming show 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 had quite the journey. It was the debut project for developer Typhoon Studios, started by Alex Hutchinson, the game director for Assassin’s Creed III and Far Cry 4 at Ubisoft. It was a rare comic sci-fi adventure game with bright colors inspired by Men in Black and Ghostbusters. In the game, you’re sent to explore a planet and see if it is fit for human habitation.
Google acquired Typhoon Studios in 2019 and then launched Journey to the Savage Planet on Google Stadia, the ill-fated cloud gaming service. On the day of the launch on February 1, 2021, Google also shut down Typhoon. Former members of Typhoon then started Raccoon Logic in August 2021 and then acquired the intellectual property rights for Savage Planet. Raccoon Logic built up to around 30 people, obtained financing from Tencent, and built the new game for less than $10 million.
Tweed’s new nemesis is Gunther Harrison, CEO of Alta Interglobal, a rival corporation to Kindred Aerospace. Once again, a scientist is sent to explore and colonize a new planet, but midway through the journey the scientist is fired by Alta Interglobal, which decided that the mission to colonize the distant star system is too costly. Then the ship breaks down at the new planet. Abandoned by your corporation, your job is to survive and once again find a way back home.
Hands-on preview
I started playing the tutorial and it was pretty easy to get the hang of it. Looking out at the colorful environment, I had to scavenge for resources from animals, plants, ore and more. Then I took them back to the 3D printer and printed objects. The planet is loaded with comical fauna and critters. And there is a lot of goo that can bog you down as you travel through it.
I learned how to use the scanner, which can tell you what you’re dealing with and how it can be useful to you. You can step on little creatures and they turn into a green goo. Some of the creatures have resources. You can boot these ball-like creatures called Brainards and watch them bounce and go splat. Whenever I had a mission to make something with my 3D printer, a navigation marker appeared on the horizon so I could hunt down the items that I needed. If I got lost, I had to just click down on the right stick to see where my objective was.
After learning the tutorial, I moved to a scene in the middle of the game, where I could now jump far and climb. Through the planet with its light gravity, I bounded in the air from one big rock to another. I ran into some purple wolf-like creatures who got mad at me. They chased me for a long time and I had to keep jumping to get away. I thought they were tired of chasing me but they still hunted me down. Then I moved to the top of a rock and jumped on their heads. It turned out that was their weak spot.
One of the interesting things is that there is more than one planet to visit in this game, making the name of the game seem a little inaccurate. In fact, you have to survive on four savage planets and scan everything you find on them. The flora is very different on all of the planets.
When it comes to alien creatures, you can use your gun to shoot them or capture them with a lasso. You can capture them and place them in holding pens. I enjoyed the game and its laughable colors and cute sense of humor. Looking forward to seeing more.
Interview with game designer
After I finished the demo, I did an interview with Steven Masters, game designer at Raccoon Logic. He told me the first game did well because it was relatively rare as a comedy in a market full of serious games. What was 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 corporate satire, having a lot of fun and humor inside of the game, and also being a little bit more open. One of our key decisions was to switch from first person to third person. It allows us to really bring more humor to the character, improve some of the platforming. You have a little bit more personality inside of the character.”
When the character runs, he bends his legs puts knees high into the air, as if he were marching. Masters said it looks silly but it was inspired by people who have to run through the surf at the beach.
The game will have roughly 15 to 20 hours of gameplay. Depending on your preference for pioneering, Revenge of the Savage Planet can be played solo, or co-op (either split screen / couch co-op or online), with crossplay on various platforms.
There were two different endings to Journey to the Savage Planet, and this one will have three as there are multiple narrative threads, Masters said.
It seems like a lot of work for a team of 30 people to do on budget of under $10 million, but the team has a lot of experience at different companies.
There has been a lot of turmoil in games. AI wasn’t useful in the project so far. But somehow this 30-person studio is faring well.
“We’re really focused on is keeping a lean focused machine. We’re not trying to expand out create another 500-person game-as-a-service game. We just wanted to do something small and focused that was really representative of something we wanted to play, that we hope resonates with our players.”
The team has been testing a lot of the game with a regular group of playtesters.
“We’re all super passionate and we all know our business,” Masters said. “We’re able to execute at a much faster pace but also in a more relaxed way.”
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