The Indie Informer

Imagine, if you will, a camp site. Picnic tables lining the perimeter hold everything from light fare to gaming setups. And in the back, a cheery looking vintage camper. This is my introduction to Revenge of the Savage Planet, and it seems to offer a wholesome time. But it’s all a lie.

Seated inside the camper, cozily nestled with gameplay stations, my guide to new and far flung worlds smiles with satisfaction as horror dawns on my face. The reality I discover — the one undeniable truth of this game — is anytime there’s a cute creature on screen, I become the architect of its usually horrific destruction. The worst part? It’s really fun.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. My initial hands-on time with the game confirms a few things. One, it’s as beautiful in motion as in still shots, with cartoony character models striding over rich, alien environments. Next, I feel a sense of appreciation for the humor baked into the world’s DNA. My lanky explorer runs with all the grace of a newborn giraffe. The “scientific” descriptions resulting from my scans are often silly — like when my readout basically just said, “Yep. That’s a tree.” Thanks, that’s very helpful. And the tongue-in-cheek corporate greed parody inherent in my mission objectives hits the right notes.

Mostly, as my playtime runs on, I can’t help being impressed by the game’s skillful juggling of an extensive combo of genres. The creators described their project as a “wide-angle Metroidvania,” which hints at its open, 3D landscape and gameplay flow. However, tucked into the jungles, deserts, fields, mountains, and everything in between, are elements of decoration sim, survival crafting, creature capture, puzzle-solving, cross-play co-op, and narrative adventure.

Though I’d crash landed on this brave new world, I was consistently gaining new tools to overcome its obstacles. One of the first was a very helpful double jump pack. Or, at least, it would be helpful if I was a normal person. One of the developers passing by laughingly teased my playstyle saying, “Oh, you’re a Skyrim player,” referencing my insistence on going over a mountain rather than around it on the nice, laid-out path.

Even my vertically enhanced skills couldn’t get me around a giant toad-like monster, however. I knew there’d be a trick to that, so I set about scanning the landscape. This led me to find a handful of cute little creatures I just wanted to give a big hug. I was elated to find out I could pick them up to do just that. Until it dawned on me why I could hold them. A prompt to throw them appeared on the screen and the pieces came together like a slap in the face. I had to launch them into the hungry, gaping mouth of the monster blocking my path in order to make it move. My guide didn’t try to suppress his laughter as I shamefacedly sacrificed the unsuspecting critters.

This earned me access to a long-abandoned base, whose population sign generously ticked up from zero to one as I entered. Everyone else who had once lived here was either dead or fled long ago. The mystery of their disappearance would have to wait, though, as the base opened up my ability to buy furniture to decorate my new space. I took longer doing this than I care to admit.

Before long, I was off on new missions. One, which unfolds much later in the game (I had to access this through a new save file) took me above a poisoned swamp and into an impossibly tall canopy. I now had a gun with ammunition including water spray, lava flow, and electric shock. I used many of these to reach the top of a gnarled tree.

The water, for instance, opened up large flower buds which let me jump up my path. The lava and electricity took care of any would-be enemies. The treasure at the summit was a whip with several purposes. It’s good in combat and acts as a kind of grappling hook for exploration. Of course, it also works as a Metroidvania-like key to unlock new areas.

My hands-on time came to a close on a cliffhanger. Using another save file, I found myself in a system of caves which required me to use electricity in its environmental puzzles to venture farther in. In one of the deepest caverns, I discovered a scattering of cryo pods. Why were they in the back of a cave and who put them there? Satisfying my curiosity would have to wait. Revenge of the Savage Planet is currently set to launch in May this year, and hopefully, that’s when I’ll find my answers.