Journey to the Savage Planet

If you are looking for a first-person adventure game to really grab your attention, then Journey To The Savage Planet is likely to have been recommended. Seen by many as the next in-line to take over from popular exploration games like Subnautica and Firewatch, Journey To The Savage Planet offers enough unicity to keep you coming back to explore just one more time. Alex Hutchinson directed the game, developed by Typhoon Studios, and it looks to have been a huge success commercially. Is it, though, an adventure you’ll enjoy taking on?

A satisfying journey, held back by clunky design (7.5/10)

If you enjoy exploration games like Subnautica, then this offering is sure to intrigue. You’ll be taking part in a genuinely gorgeous exploration that encourages you to enjoy a really exciting storyline that is packed with good writing. Humour and satire play their role here in a good way, not in some dull caricature of ‘comedy’ that we often get in games. The writing is quality, and it is every bit as beautiful as the world that has been built.

Managed from a first-person perspective, you work for Kindred Aerospace and you have been sent to an uncharted planet – ARY-26 – to see if it would be useful for suitable colonisation. The planet, though, is very different to what you might expect – it’s packed with detail and intrigue, and is loaded with secrets worth exploring. You’ll need to take on a rather simple but fun storyline, and you’ll need to deal with platforming, handling set piece moments, and the odd bit of action using your laser gun(s).

A Journey You Won’t Forget

The real winner, though, is the gorgeous and detailed environment that you get to explore. The story is simple enough, sure, and you get enough moments of high-octane platforming and action to keep you busy, but it’s the environment that makes Journey To The Savage Planet a game worth playing. You get to move around a gorgeous world (with or without friends), and you get to explore a planet that feels deep, energised, alive, and simply gorgeous.

Sadly, while the aesthetics and the actual storyline are fun, the game is let down by some pretty poor control design. While some changes were made since release, many gamers still find this to be a needlessly hard game to play.

Add in the fact that some of its objectives and its markers can be needlessly stressful to try and follow, and the whole thing can become a bit of an exercise in frustration for the most part. When it gets it right and you aren’t being taken out of the emotion due to weird controls or design flaws, though, Journey To The Savage Planet does a wonderful job indeed.

Pros:

• Storyline and writing are fun and worth exploring
• Platforming and combat can be great fun (when controls allow)
• Detail and style of the world itself is absolutely gorgeous, utterly dynamic

Cons:

• Really let down by poor controls that can be hard to overlook
• Markers for objectives and quests can be nightmarish at times

Journey to the Savage Planet invites players on a colorful and hilarious journey through space as they explore an uncharted planet full of cosmic oddities. With its vibrant visuals and wacky storyline, the game takes a different approach on the concept of space travel. Playing as a fresh face in the world of otherworldly exploration, you'll scavenge and research an alien world packed with mystery and intrigue. As you discover new information and interactive elements, you'll unlock new items to craft that help you reach new areas. By presenting players with a consistently interesting environment to explore and a fun progression system, Journey to the Savage Planet offers a compelling and morbidly humorous adventure for gamers to enjoy.

Main Game Features

• Detailed world full of interesting creatures
• Dozens of craftable weapons and equipment
• Irreverent humor and witty dialogue

Story

In Journey to the Savage Planet, you play as an unnamed astronaut working for Kindred Aerospace, the self-proclaimed “fourth-best space company in the galaxy”. As a part of the Pioneer project, it's your job to investigate possible planets for human habitation, as the Earth has quickly become volatile due to climate change. During your first voyage, your ship steers off course, landing on a planet with much more alien life than expected. In need of fuel and desperate to repair your ship and find a way home, you'll have to brave the untamed landscape of planet ARY-26. Along the way, you'll learn more about the planet and its native inhabitants, as well as Kindred Aerospace and the motivations behind the Pioneer project.

Gameplay

Your adventure on ARY-26 starts out slowly, with you learning the ropes as you make your first steps onto the hazardous planet. Armed with a simple pistol and a scanning visor, you'll explore your surroundings, gathering information on the various plants and creatures you find. Some of the fauna can be exterminated or harvested for resources like carbon, silicon, and aluminum, which can be used to craft new items back at your ship. As you progress further into the game, you'll discover more fearsome enemies and extremely dangerous environments, requiring you to upgrade your gear and weaponry. Journey to the Savage Planet has a well-designed world, which guides you from discovery to discovery at a relaxed but enjoyable pace.

A lot of the fun in Journey to the Savage Planet comes from its lackadaisical attitude and surprisingly dark humor. Many of the creatures you find are cute and cuddly, which makes dispatching them laughably morbid. As you bounce around the planet searching for new resources, you'll smack and kick the colorful creatures to your heart's content, locating hidden secrets along the way. There are a variety of collectibles to find that increase your player level as well, granting you higher health and stamina. Generally speaking, Journey to the Savage Planet offers players a compelling gameplay loop of exploration and crafting, combined with laugh-out-loud moments and a feeling of personal discovery.

Conclusion

If you enjoy games like Fallout 3 and Borderlands because of their interesting worlds, you'll likely find similar enjoyment in Journey to the Savage Planet. While its gameplay is more reminiscent of franchises like Metroid Prime, there's still plenty of leveling up and crafting to satiate your RPG needs. The colorful graphics and funny dialogue give the game a unique tone that's both lighthearted and exceptionally dark, resulting in a gleefully violent experience. Clocking in at around 8 – 10 hours and playable as both a solo and cooperative experience, Journey to the Savage Planet is an adventure well worth embarking on.

Pros

• Consistently funny and wacky
• Addictive progression system
• Exciting and compelling to explore

Cons

• Combat is a bit simple
• Sense of humor might not be for everyone
• Lots of backtracking