Introduction

Revenge of the Savage Planet is the sequel that picked up its predecessor's bright colours, goopy alien lifeforms and mild existential dread, gave them a new camera angle and said, in the driest voice imaginable, "now with more personality." Developed and published by Raccoon Logic - the team that used to be Typhoon Studios until corporate shenanigans forced them to rebrand like videogame phoenixes - this is the 2025 action-adventure that wants to make you laugh while it quietly critiques the people who fired its devs. On PS4 it arrives a little less like a technical miracle and more like a colourful, well-meaning spacecraft you can still drive through a meteor shower without dying immediately. Which is to say: enjoyable, occasionally rickety, and definitely memorable.

Gameplay

If you liked Journey to the Savage Planet and thought "this would be fun if it had more grappling and fewer assumably competent employers," Raccoon Logic has heard you and answered with a Proton Whip Tether. The sequel switches to a third-person perspective, which is mostly a victory for comedic timing and the ability to see your protagonist attempt a heroic leap and instead invent new ways to look mildly inconvenienced. You take the role of a space explorer abandoned by their employer on hostile planets. The core loop is exploration-first: scan flora and fauna, learn their secrets, capture some creatures (yes, the game lets you stun and bag things like a very polite poacher), and unlock upgrades that open new routes and gadgets. Level design leans heavily into Metroidvania territory. There are four main planets - Stellaris Prime, Xephyr, Quasadron IX and Zenithian Rift - each with distinct landscapes, and a fifth world that unlocks post-story to satisfy anyone who thinks endings are just primers for more exploration. The map design encourages curiosity: follow the obvious path and you'll reach the objective; wander off and you'll find a room that lets you grind on rails, swing across chasms, or hose a sentient blob into submission. Traversal is the game's emotional centre: Proton Whip Tether zips you across wide gaps, the Hawx Rail Grinder turns rails into surprisingly stylish highways for your character, and the Goo Ingestor sprays the environment with water, lava or acid depending on which sort of chaos you want to make today. The home base on Stellaris Prime is a pleasant little hub for your research sabbatical. Add rooms, build facilities, unlock new tools; it's all mildly addictive in the way of a low-stakes personal project. Capturing creatures for research not only gives you upgrades but also unlocks outfit colour palettes, which is the game acknowledging that if you're going to survive corporate betrayal you may as well look good doing it. Combat exists and will occasionally remind you that this is a videogame, not a turn-based nature doc. Critics were mixed; some enjoyed the slapstick of enemy encounters and the emergent chaos when gadgets interact, while others felt combat was the soft underbelly - serviceable but not the point. That fits with the design: the team wanted "organic chaos," inspired by emergent gameplay, not choreographed boss fights. On PS4 this translates to enjoyable scraps and the occasional moment where the frame rate sighs and asks for a coffee. Co-op is a welcome companion. You can go split-screen on a single console or team up online for two-player cooperative play, which turns the game's best moments into shared absurdity. Watching a friend mis-time a Hawx Rail grind and invent a new physics problem is the kind of emergent entertainment Raccoon Logic clearly predicted and monetised by not charging extra for laughter. There are pacing hiccups. Early game segments can feel deliberately stingy with crucial traversal upgrades, which makes the opening act less about freedom and more about polite frustration. Several reviews noted that the first hours lock essential tools behind progress gates, slowing momentum. Once those gates fall, the game loosens up considerably and rewards exploration with frequent delightful discoveries. Story-wise, the satire of late-stage capitalism and dev-industry layoffs is sharp and often self-referential. It hits the funny bone more than it punches the jaw, and it occasionally wanders into a different tonal lane near the end of the narrative, which might feel like ordering a burger and getting a TED Talk instead.

Graphics

Revenge of the Savage Planet is a colourful distraction machine. The art direction favours kaleidoscopic palettes and massive draw distances, which reviewers praised as a technical tour de force - particularly on higher-end hardware. On PS4 you won't get the same buttery performance as on PS5, but the visual identity survives just fine. Planets feel lively; foliage wiggles with purpose; enemy designs are absurd in all the best ways, ranging from angry sentient slimes to creatures that look like someone crossbred a raccoon with a blender. Unreal Engine 5 helps with volumetric vistas and believable environmental variety, and the shift to third-person allowed the team to inject more personality into animations. The running gait was inspired by people charging through surf, which explains why your character sometimes looks like they are politely outrunning a beach party. Technical compromises are present on PS4: draw-in and occasional hitching appear during hectic sequences, and some of the more elaborate vistas are less crisp than on next-gen platforms. None of that ruins the experience; it merely ensures the game delivers personality before it delivers pixel perfection. Audio and music are unobtrusive allies to the visuals. The soundtrack complements exploration rather than competing with it, and the sound design makes the world feel cheekily alive. The humour is supported by voice and animation, though your enjoyment of the jokes will depend on whether you like a pointed, self-aware comedy about corporate nonsense and developer resilience - and whether you find toilet jokes charming or merely insistently present.

Conclusion

Raccoon Logic built more than a sequel; they built a commentary with a grappling hook. Revenge of the Savage Planet on PS4 is a solid action-adventure that prioritises exploration, traversal and a particular brand of deadpan, self-aware humour. It can be slow to start, and combat occasionally plays second fiddle to the game's other ambitions, but the reward for patience is a joyful mix of platforming, research-driven upgrades and the kind of emergent chaos that makes you giggle without needing a patch note. If you're looking for a game that loves its gadgets, asks you to poke at every nook, and will let you bring a friend along for the ride, this is worth the trip. If you want a perfectly trimmed, relentlessly polished next-gen visual showcase, PS4 will make you do some forgiving mental gymnastics. For everyone else, especially those with a soft spot for satire about the very industry that produced it, this is an enjoyably weird and humane little revenge tale. It doesn't destroy the corporate establishment, but it will let you tether across a canyon while making fun of it, which is arguably the same thing in videogame terms.

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