At E3 2019, I got to go hands-on with Journey To The Savage Planet, the first game from Typhoon Studios. It’s a first-person space exploration game that puts players in the shoes of an explorer tasked with exploring, cataloging alien flora and fauna all while trying to determine if the planet you’ve traveled to is safe for humans. The first thing you see when you take a look at the game is how bright and colorful it is. The other thing that you notice is how charming and quirky it is. From the creatures to the tools you use to explore the planet and solve puzzles, it presents itself as something fun and constantly smiling.
I learned how charming it is early on with going through setting up your game. You can pick a picture you use as an avatar, though you’ll never see your face. The pictures look like pictures that were taken from a 1980’s high school yearbook. You can also choose if you want to have AI companion be a chatterbox or be silent. As you exit your spaceship, you are freely able to explore. The first thing you come across are essentially alien chickens and you can interact with them as well as other creatures in various ways.
The game isn’t meant to be heavily combat focused, but some creatures do an attack on sight. You can feed these creatures this goo that they will go and eat and eventually poop out carbon (it’s not as bad as it sounds). That’s when the game started to make sense. You explore and have to utilize your environment to help reach new areas and discover new things throughout the world. You can have a number of tools at your disposal. Some you craft like a grappling hook while others you get from the world. You can also scan the environment which helps you figure out what kind of material you are looking at or what a creature’s name is. One of the main things that we were tasked to do in the demo was scan the world so it is a very helpful and useful feature.
Journey To The Savage Planet is a very charming, quirky, and funny space exploration game. It kind of reminds me of a mix between No Man’s Sky and the focus on exploration with the comedic elements of Ratchet & Clank. If either of those sound interesting to you, then I highly recommend you check out Journey to the Savage Planet when it releases early 2020 for the PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.