Although Journey to the Savage Planet may appear to be a colorful sci-fi adventure game at first glance, the game's comedy is perhaps its most memorable quality. The game was well-regarded when it was originally released largely thanks to the many hilarious jokes and gags present throughout the game, and now Journey to the Savage Planet has returned with an upgraded Enhanced Edition courtesy of Raccoon Logic.
Game Rant recently spoke with Alex Hutchinson, who previously led Typhoon Studios during the game's original development and who has returned as creative director of Raccoon Logic. Hutchinson spoke about how gaming offers a unique platform for a special kind of comedy, while the sci-fi setting allows for social commentary that mixes terrifically with Savage Planet's humor.
Journey to the Savage Planet Delivers Its Humor Through Gameplay
Games have always been an effective way for people to express their ideas, tell stories, and deliver important messages by directly involving players in the story and gameplay. To Hutchinson and the Raccoon Logic team, however, comedy in gaming isn't as pervasive as it ought to be. Thankfully, Journey to the Savage Planet more than makes up for the industry's oversight in this area. Comedy can be challenging to deliver in video games without falling flat or being repetitive, which Savage Planet handles by telling jokes through the gameplay itself.
The core pillar of the game is comedy which we think is really under-represented as a genre in games, especially the kind of comedy that is unique to games. We wanted to replace the moments in games that scare you with moments that make you laugh: systemic outcomes that don’t punish and kill you but instead surprise and delight you. Writing a joke is funny once, but letting you slap your co-op partner to their death off a cliff is funny forever.
Similar to situational scares in the best horror games, Journey to the Savage Planet often gets a laugh out of players by placing them in funny situations or letting them amuse themselves by punting pufferbirds into the stratosphere. Commentary from the player's AI companion E.K.O. is another great source of humor, as the AI makes funny remarks on the player's current status, even writing a poem for the player to commemorate their 10th respawn.
Journey to the Savage Planet is inspired by Philip K. Dick and Satirical Sci-Fi Classics
Sci-fi has traditionally been used as a method of delivering social commentary by applying modern-day issues to a fictional future society. This is the entire basis for Star Trek and Star Wars along with countless other sci-fi franchises throughout history. Journey to the Savage Planet is no different in this regard, and it uses its sci-fi setting to point out the problems with modern corporatism in particular.
I am a huge Philip K. Dick fan, so one secret bit of info is Kindred Aerospace is named after him, as Kindred was his middle name. I also love the social satire of movies like Starship Troopers or Robocop. But a lot of sci-fi is really just about the present day taken into the future, so I was inspired by the general corporate greed and the idiocy of many of the mega companies, especially in tech, which we are surrounded by today.
The game makes heavy use of satire intertwined with its own brand of absurd comedy to great effect. A series of amusing fictional TV commercials featured in the game stand out in particular. On one occasion, a flamboyant ad for a game called MOBAMOBAMOBILE VR v.17: Golden Fleece Edition touts its incredible number of expensive microtransactions and pay-to-win features. The ad wraps up with fictional publisher Brain Drain Games' tagline: It's Not In The Game (unless you separately purchase each character, world element, model, and texture!). While the game's developers clearly aren't afraid to poke fun at their own industry, other topics are also touched on like corporations' disposable view of workers and reckless disregard for the environment.
Journey to the Savage Planet: Employee of the Month is available on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.