Exploration sounds exciting. Our culture is full of stories of frontiers and bold adventures into the great unknown. The problem with the unknown is you don’t know what you’ll find. Most times when we talk about how much fun exploration is, what we’re really talking about is discovery. Finding cool things in unexpected places is what makes all that wandering worth it. The best video games understand this. We want our open worlds to strike the balance of being both sprawling locations and full of stuff. Bonus points if it’s funny. And right now, Xbox Game Pass just added one of the best open worlds of the year.
Revenge of the Savage Planet hit Game Pass on May 8 and brought with it the spirit of its predecessor, 2020’s Journey to the Savage Planet. In the interim, the founding studio closed, but Raccoon Logic rose from the ashes and launched this pseudo-sequel that delightfully fills the void of wacky space adventures left by Starfield’s underwhelming world-building and The Outer Worlds 2’s distant release date. It doubles down on everything that made the original great with irreverent humor, environmental exploration, and bright, candy-colored cosmic chaos and injects it with a mean streak and tight gameplay.
The setup is simple, as these things usually are: You’re marooned on yet another uncharted planet with suspiciously arranged ruins and genetically confused wildlife. Your mission? Explore, document, survive, and possibly avenge your predecessor who was last seen being turned into alien food. The tone wavers between satirical and sincere, often in the same breath. Think Starship Troopers meets Rick and Morty.
Gameplay-wise, Revenge of the Savage Planet thrives on jumping, gadgets, and improv. Traversal tools like the double-jump jetpack and grappling tentacle (yes, it’s as weird as it sounds) are introduced early, encouraging a kind of chaotic freedom as you bounce and swing your way across bioluminescent cliffs and fungus-choked caverns. The level design supports this beautifully. It’s not an open world in the traditional Ubisoft sense, but rather a dense series of interconnected biomes, each with its own environmental puzzles, flora/fauna dangers, and grotesque surprises.
Combat, which was arguably a weak link in the original, gets a major overhaul here. Enemies are more aggressive and come with distinct behavior patterns, forcing you to mix and match your weapons, doo-dads, and a surprisingly deep upgrade tree. It’s not DOOM levels of intense, but it rewards experimentation and spatial awareness.
What really makes Revenge sing, though, is the writing. The in-game AI companion, E.K.O., returns in fine sarcastic form. This time she’s less of a comic relief and more of a reluctant co-pilot in your descent into alien weirdness. The environmental storytelling is top-notch. Abandoned research pods tell a darkly comedic tale of corporate exploitation gone horribly wrong, while the alien ruins hint at a civilization that might have imploded under its own hubris. There's satire here, but also genuine mystery.
Visually, it’s a stunner. Not in the ultra-realistic sense, but in its art direction: vibrant, cartoonish, and occasionally grotesque. The developers lean into the uncanny, making every creature feel alien but somehow appropriate for each environment.
Like a lot of other open-world titles, Revenge of the Savage Planet relies a bit too heavily on fetch quests and backtracking, especially in the mid-game. But when the world is this fun to move through, and the surprises keep hitting, it’s a minor complaint. It’s also an excellent co-op adventure supporting online play and local split-screen.
In a landscape increasingly dominated by safe sequels and grimdark prestige fare, Revenge of the Savage Planet is a joyfully twisted outlier. It’s sharp, self-aware, and unafraid to be dumb in the smartest possible way. You’ll come for the laughs, stay for the loot, and leave with a deeper existential fear of interplanetary capitalism.
With a playtime around 15 hours, it’s the perfect Game Pass game for when you want to trying something new to tinker with until the next big release (looking at you DOOM: The Dark Ages). You may as well embrace your inner explorer in one of 2025’s hidden gems.
