I adore Revenge of the Savage Planet's lush, lurid playground of alien absurdity – but it's not for everyone

If Journey to the Savage Planet was the quirky sci-fi sleeper hit of 2020, then Revenge of the Savage Planet is its rowdier, more confident sibling. Louder, funnier and far more visually ambitious, this is a follow-up that dives headlong into its Douglas Adams-meets-Rick and Morty ambitions and cakes it all in gooey imaginative visual design.

Developed by Raccoon Logic, the spiritual successors to Typhoon Studios, this sequel trades its predecessor’s first-person framework for a tighter third-person perspective and places an emphasis on co-op, though it's perfectly fun to venture solo. (Read my early hands-on with Revenge of the Savage Planet for more context.)

The shift, subtle on paper, is transformative in execution. And yet, what really sets this game apart isn’t just the refined controls or new co-op – it’s the art direction and animation that keeps me playing, even when the Metroidvania can stumble my protagonist into cul de sacs – you can explore the sandboxes but not everywhere is accessible until you build the required tool, which means researching and materials harvesting, and some patience.

Revenge of the Savage Planet is a visual treat

Revenge of the Savage Planet is a game that lives and dies by its bold aesthetic audacity; even when the world is against me the tease of another fluffy goofy-eyed alien to blast or colourful vista to stumble upon keeps me playing. Everything, from the bulbous alien flora to the grotesquely adorable fauna, feels like it’s been pulled straight from the sketchbooks of a hyperactive concept artist with a deep love of pulp sci-fi covers and Saturday morning cartoons.

This is a world that feels like Robert Crumb got drunk with Ralph McQuarrie and read a little too much Douglas Adams. Revenge of the Savage Planet is lurid, it’s visually loud, and it somehow all works. The palette is unashamedly garish in the best possible way. Poisonous pinks, electric greens, and eye-searing oranges dominate the alien landscapes, turning every corner of a new world into a dense, candy-coated joy ride.

But the game’s art direction maintains just enough visual hierarchy and spatial clarity to keep me oriented while being bombarding with constant thrills. Each planet is visually distinct; beginning with a serene beach and jungles, before moving to sandy, dune deserts, to crystalline ice caverns and more. The world feels hand-made, inked and painted onto the screen and makes good use of Unreal Engine 5 to deliver large, detailed environments, even if it can occasionally glitch on PS5 when more effects are being thrown at the screen or a massive boss needs to defeated.

This handcrafted sensibility extends to the animation. Movement in Revenge of the Savage Planet is kinetic and buoyant, aided by responsive controls and a satisfying sense of weight. Jumping, grappling and goo-spraying my way through the terrain feels tactile but above all fun and easily playable.

Creatures wobble, shimmy and erupt in exaggerated death spirals that suggest a deep appreciation for classic Warner Bros. animation – I smiled early on when a small furry creature exploded in goo and its large eyeballs rolled comically down a hill. That smile came back later when a bug spun on screen, yelled 'cooeee' and shot at me. There’s a studied cartoonishness to how things move, a sense of animation as performance, not just function. Every enemy, even the most insignificant blob, feels like it has a personality baked into its idle animations and attack cues.

More goo the better

There’s clear influence from games like Ratchet & Clank and Oddworld in character design and a satirical script that pokes fun at corporate greed and sensationalised influencer media, but Revenge of the Savage Planet never feels derivative and while some may get tired of its base humour, I'm still chuckling a week into playing. While the influences are there, Revenge of the Savage Planet feels more like a remix, filtered through the lens of a team clearly revelling in its creative freedom.

This is nowhere more apparent than in the enemy design: fluffy bobble-headed raccoons (apes?) with googly eyes, gelatinous beasts that explode into showers of confetti-like organs, and they have names like 'Lurid Striped Puffer' and 'Bumblar'. It’s not just imaginative, it’s playfully grotesque, as if Hieronymus Bosch was hired to design mascots for a kids' breakfast cereal, while binging Animaniacs.

The Metroidvania design rears its head and while you can encounter many enemies some you won't be able to defeat until you've scavenged materials and built the right weapons and tools to freeze, blast, fill with water, whip and smash each new monster, which in turn drop materials and it all begins again. I love the Magnetic Fork – for launching metal objects – and goo-based hose that can suck up liquids and turn them on enemies (which can also be used to solve environment puzzles and discover new secrets).

The game's Metroidvania design does at least unfurl at an easy pace, with new gear unlocked from main quests, but the loop of scanning, scavenging and building is a core function that feels built around teasing me to play a little further, while occasionally putting on the brakes and forcing some grinding. It's a solid design but the design can tease too early without offering a satisfying answer – you can dive into lakes but not explore until you've build the scuba gear. It's a marmite game structure, but it more often than not works in Revenge of the Savage Planet.

Helping things along is the same satirical tone that defined the original game. The in-game ads that blurp onto the base's computer, still delivered through FMV with wonderfully bad acting, feel eerily close to modern tech dystopia. To recap: it's taken you 100 years to arrive at your colonisation planet and in that time you've been made redundant, a fate I can imagine Arthur Dent tightening his dressing gown over in dismay.

Co-op is now a central feature rather than an afterthought. You can drop in and out with a friend, either online or via local split-screen, and it genuinely enhances the experience. While there are a few odd design limitations (such as both players needing to remain on the same planet and only one save records progress), the game mostly avoids the frustrating tethering issues that plague other co-op titles.

It’s in co-op where the game’s toon-like slapstick sensibility really shines. Nothing beats two explorers being flung into a bottomless chasm because one of them accidentally gooed a jump pad. (Need a little more reason to love the game? Read how the Revenge of the Savage Planet poster illustration was made.)

A love / hate game?

Revenge of the Savage Planet is not without its flaws. Occasional technical issues (I noted the odd animation glitch and frame stutter on PS5), some frustrations with the Metroidvania format, which can't hide the occasional repetitive mission or two, slightly tarnish the experience.

But these are small blemishes on an otherwise fun and ridiculous canvas. Revenge of the Savage Planet is a rare sequel that understands what worked, dials it up, and adds enough new ideas to justify its existence. It’s a game that invites you to laugh, gawk and maybe even reflect, between bouts of alien goo-gliding and bug swatting.

Revenge of the Savage Planet can feel like marmite game, you'll either love it or the mix of cartoon visuals and humour won't stick; to paraphrase Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, this game has a 'Thursday feel' to it and not everyone can 'get the hang of Thursdays'.