Not too long ago we finally got our hands on the upcoming indie title Journey to the Savage Planet which later followed up with an interview as well – which you can read right here. Savage Planet was originally announced over at the Video Game Awards quite a while back and we heard nothing about the game ever since. What is Journey to the Savage Planet? Is it a Battle Royale? FPS? Arcade Action? Well, it turns out that it is simply a game that focuses on exploring a planet that you crash-landed on. So how does the gameplay work and how do you progress in such a game? Let’s crash land right now and talk about our impressions of Journey to the Savage Planet.
The Gameplay and Premise
Journey to the Savage Planet is a game that strongly focuses almost purely on exploration. Right off the bat you are spawned in your ship on an unknown planet. The ship kind of acts like your player hub where you can get upgrades for your gadgets and check on your overall progress of the planet and be able to teleport to other locations on the planet assuming that you have discovered them previously. The main character is also equipped with a gun in his right hand as the game has basic combat mechanics with a little bit of depth where you are able to upgrade your gun with new abilities such as charged shots that do more damage.
As soon as I got out of the ship I simply started exploring the planet at my leisure while also learning the gameplay mechanics at the same time. During my adventure, I came across many different goofy looking aliens that were both hostile and neutral. The goal of the game is to explore the planet, scan everything in sight including planet’s lifeforms and plants, collect rare materials that can later be used for gadget or gun upgrades and keep progressing throughout the entire planet. What’s unique about this game as opposed to something like No Man’s Sky is the humor that it throws at you. The game never tries to take itself too seriously and always makes fun of everything and everyone and it’s a fantastic breath of fresh air that we normally don’t see in games these days. During my journey I also came across caves, valleys, and a ton of platforming sections as well. As you explore the planet and progress you will come across small side quests that give you different rewards as you complete them. You can either focus on your main quest or get side-tracked and do other things which is what I did during my session.
My playtime was about an hour long and the cool thing was that we could of used that playtime however we wanted in the game. So as a player, you could take your time and really explore the planet and stop at every nook and cranny or you can simply rush through and try to progress as far as possible. The game just simply throws you in this world and doesn’t tell you what to do, you play it how you want it. If you’ve played any exploration game such as No Man’s Sky or even Zelda: Breath of the Wild then you know the feeling we’re describing here.
The concept is the same in Journey to the Savage Planet except that the game rewards you a lot more on exploration than other titles and focuses purely on that instead. The best part is that there is no time limit or any kind of punishment, you can take as much time as you want and do as you please. It’s worth noting that Journey to the Savage Planet is not a full priced game and is considered more of a high quality triple A indie title that is going to be released sometime next year in 2020. The developers did not specify an actual date for the game but did assure us that the game “should” be out before E3 2020 which basically means Spring 2020.
Final Thoughts
Overall, Journey to the Savage Planet is quite a unique game that I did enjoy. It offers something fresh to the audience thanks to its wacky humor, colorful art-style and very relaxed gameplay mechanics and progression that doesn’t put a lot of pressure on the player. The game was running on Unreal Engine 4 and it looked and played great, as well.
Although, my biggest concern with this game is its future and if the game will evolve going forward. As of right now, the game seems a bit limited on its length and doesn’t seem to take a long time to finish from what I’ve experienced and what I been told. What happens after you get all the upgrades and explore the entire planet and get to the end of the story? Is there a sequel waiting, post-launch downloadable content or something of that sorts? How will the developers continue on with the success of this game assuming that it does well both critically and financially? Only time will tell. Stay tuned to Gaming Instincts for our full review of the game when it launches later next year and don’t forget to check out our in-depth interview on Journey to the Savage Planet right here for more details.
