Once you hear the name Journey to the Savage Planet, the first thing that comes to mind is almost exactly what the game turns out to be. I said almost because when I first read “savage planet” I imagined a game character who finds himself in a planet filled with monstrous looking savages, tasked with staying alive and finding a way home. Basically, I imagined something like Jumanji. Well, what Typhoon Studios delivered on the 28th of January, 2020 wasn’t exactly what I imagined but it wasn’t a far cry from it either. It is almost like expecting a blues song to be about love, you can never really go wrong.

Quite like every sci-fi exploration genre game out there, Journey to the Savage Planet was set in an outer space planet. But unlike most games in this genre, Journey to the Savage Planet employs humor, satire, aesthetics, and periodic violence in telling its story. In the game, you are an employee of Kindred Aerospace Company, a company which seats elegantly in its position as the “4th Best Interstellar Exploration Company” in the game. For some reason, I feel like this was added simply for comic effect because looking at the company I wonder if there is even a 5th best company at all. That aside, you have been sent to explore a new planet called AR-Y 26 in a bid to determine if the planet can support human life. Your first duty on your job description, apart from trying to stay alive, is to catalog the flora and fauna you find on the planet.

For a first-person shooter, I expected that the game would have a lot of shooting and action going down from the blast of the whistle. But once again, Typhoon Studios disappoints us in a good way because the game wasn’t built majorly for the shooting. As a matter of fact, the shooting takes a backseat, more like a means to an end – the end being an interaction with the environment. You are expected to craft most of your equipment using resources from the environment. You can also get materials for upgrading your exploration equipment from plants and dead aliens. The more upgrades you do, the more areas you can explore. You might want to search the grasslands for materials you can use to upgrade your jetpack to get a triple jump.

There is always an incentive, a motivating factor behind your every action. Nothing is done for the sake of doing it. For instance, you shoot to stay alive but mostly because you want to get the items needed for an upgrade. You upgrade because it provides for better exploration, and you explore because the more you explore, the more abilities and tools you find. And finding new materials is equivalent to more creatures, newer upgrades, and more to explore. It simply is a web of incentives that keep you motivated and wanting more. This insatiable urge for more is constantly gratified by an ever-growing arsenal that you garner without losing sight of the aim of the game- which is the exploration of AR-Y 26.

The planet itself was constructed to make exploration a lot easier. Built as an archipelago of about three sizable biomes you can explore with ease. The scale is so even and navigable, the planet isn’t too small neither is it too large that it becomes tiresome. Also, with the planet’s well-thought-out scale, it is always easy to trace your steps back to your ship no matter how far you have wandered. It gives you the confidence to try out new places. It helps to know you can always find your way home as you venture into that dark cave in search of upgrade resources. You can be rest assured that your curiosity would be rewarded as upgrade resources are always littered in the most unlikely places throughout the game, so don’t be afraid to poke your head into that volcano.

As much as combat wasn’t the idea of this game, there remains a sufficient amount of it throughout the game. Most often the case than not, the creatures in AR-Y 26 aren’t very violent. The fighting isn’t very developed, it gets very repetitive and tedious after a while. Towards the end of the game, the game transitions from merely exploration to becoming more combat-based, climaxing in a face-off against a boss alien.

Another interesting feature of Journey to Savage Planet is how it is built to be played as a single-player, but is best enjoyed if you activate the multiplayer option. You and your partner can explore the planet individually and concurrently. Albeit, I find the game a lot more fun when we explored together, searching for resources feels easier and fights are less tedious.

When you think of satire, humor, and sci-fi games you are most likely to think about Borderlands or even Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. Well, after playing this game you will definitely add it to your list of satirical games. The humor in Savage Planet was built to be kind of like an incentive. The satire is somewhat comfortable not too offensive. For instance, capitalism is satirized through the CEO of Kindred whose hyperactivity is so exaggerated and ludicrous. The humor is also incentivized through the parody commercials that play on the TV back at your spaceship.

Right from the stables of the former creative director for Assassins Creed III and Far Cry4, Alex Hutchinson, Savage Planet creates an amazing playing experience. A lot of people will talk about how the game packs quite a number of its inspiration and mechanics from other games. While this is entirely true as it is difficult to play this game without feeling some nostalgia, nonetheless, the game carves a niche for itself. It has a carefree air about it that you can always play it as a getaway game. The only downside for me is how that the fighting can be quite boring, but then the game isn’t really about the fighting so that little fault is very negligible. As you go through the planet with EKO raving nonstop in your ears to blow everything you see up, don’t forget exploration is the focus.