Journey to the Savage Planet Preview – Carefree Intergalactic Exploration

I don’t know what it is, but people are in love with NASA all of a sudden. I’m honestly glad that NASA is getting some much-needed love, I mean, space exploration is just insanely cool — and chances are we’ll all have to live on another planet at some point, so it’d be best to support NASA to help us out with that. While freely exploring a new planet isn’t an option for all of us, you’ll at least be able to do so in the upbeat first-person adventure game, Journey to the Savage Planet from developer Typhoon Studios and publisher 505 Games. At PAX West 2019, the short demo of the game I played was a surprisingly tranquil experience in which I didn’t have to worry about a thing.

Set in a bright and colorful alien world filled with zany creatures and secrets to uncover, Journey to the Savage Planet will have players take on the role of an employee of Kindred Aerospace, which proudly touts its rating as the 4th best interstellar exploration company. Rather than having to explore a massive universe filled with numerous planets, this game is going to drop players onto an uncharted planet. With barely any equipment and no exact plan, Journey to the Savage Planet will let players have a more chill planet exploration experience as they explore the ins and outs of the planet they’re in.

However, the main objective that players will need to accomplish is finding a way into a strange tower that could very well hold the answer about whether or not there was once human life on the planet. There’s not only going to be one way to reach the tower, though, as players will have the option to find their own path to it. Since I just played a demo of the game, my key focus wasn’t really on the tower, but instead, was me just wanting to experience as much as I could. Thankfully, doing so was an absolute breeze.

While exploring the planet, I didn’t have to worry about checking my character’s stats or be afraid that I’d die out of the blue. Instead, I had the freedom to explore, scan strange flora and fauna, acquire crafting resources, and even solve quite a few simple yet satisfying puzzles. What I think fans of space exploration games will particularly enjoy about Journey to the Savage Planet is that based on my time with the game, it seems as though there aren’t going to many restrictions when it comes to exploring. I say this because I was able to check out anything I wanted, and I never ran into any inaccessible areas.

That said, creatures did roam around the planet, some were friendly and didn’t bother me at all, while others weren’t so friendly. The ones that fought back, weren’t too hard to care of thanks to having a trusty pistol-like gun in hand. However, I’d imagined that, sometimes, players may run into a few challenging creatures and could decide to take them on. For those that want to be a truly savage gunslinger, there will be the option to upgrade the gun. As far as there being other guns, the game will have only just one. During the demo, Typhoon Studios’ community manager Denis Lanno shared why as he mentioned that the development team “wanted to make Journey to the Savage Planet a game more focused on exploration rather than combat.”

From what I played, Journey to the Savage Planet is shaping up to be a lighthearted, colorful, and charming intergalactic adventure. Also, a random thing to note: If you happen to be a fan of ‘Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!”, I discovered that this game has some zany live-action commercials and just moments in general that really reminded me of the show — so maybe that could be a good reason for you to check it out.

Journey to the Savage Planet is going to be clear for take-off on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC-via the Epic Games Store on January 28, 2020.