Revenge of the Savage Planet - We Chat with Creative Director Alex Hutchinson

We managed to nab a bit of time off the Raccoon Logic co-founder’s very busy schedule, check out what he had to say!

A Montreal-based Aussie at large (and alongside this writer, a fellow Blues supporter), Alex Hutchinson has worked on some very, very big titles. He’s also been chewed up and spat out by the very industry he’s poured so much love and creativity into. But like every good ‘Aussie battler’, he and his team keep on fighting the good fight, utilising that industry churn powered by corporate greed, antithetical thinking and so-called ‘management’ to help spur them on. And these rascals at Raccoon Logic will share the fruits of that drive soon, with the forthcoming Revenge of the Savage Planet, a sequel currently positioning itself as something of a satire of the studio’s collective experience; catharsis-turned-creativity, as it were, and a not-so-subtle reflection of the industry as it currently functions.

Just in time for publish, Raccoon Logic has also dropped its latest gameplay trailer, which is an equally short glimps of things to come -- get excite:

But beneath the meta story and on-the-nose jokes mention in our intro, there’s also a videogame as you can see above. A very colourful and explosive-looking videogame, which we decided to ask Alex most about.

As massive fans of the original, there’s a lot to look forward to here, from either an expansion point-of-view or one of just a new way to play entirely. And just in time for publish, the studio has dropped its latest gameplay trailer:

Check out Q&A below.

Revenge of the Savage Planet

Genre: Action-Platformer
Developer: Raccoon Logic
Publisher:
Release Date: 2025
Classification: TBC
Author: Stephen Farrelly
Date: December 05, 2024

You’ve touched on it a bit, but at what point was first-person out the window? Was there some tech aspect behind the shift or was it something else?

The switch to third-person started with a request from Mike Menillo, our Animation Director, to add more humour to the player-character which made sense. It's hard to make hands funny on their own! Plus it made platforming easier, allowing us to add a lot more personality to our player-character [and] allowed us to show reactions to in-game systems like fire or slippery goo. And it even let us put in a bunch of cool new outfits!

How did that shift change the entire shape of the game, in particular traversal? 

It meant we could do more complex platforming, which was nice. It's much easier when you can see yourself relative to the world, obviously. Plus it's funnier to see the impact of systems on yourself in third-person, and we could give out the funky outfits mentioned above as rewards!

What means do you give the player to keep exploring and studying if they’ve been fired?! Is there some cheeky context to maintaining the journey even if there’s no perceived paycheck at the end?

Survival! And the desire to explore. You're stuck there anyway... but remember there is the chance of revenge as well! Maybe you can dig up the dirt on your former employer.

Diverse biomes were a big aspect of the first game, but mostly from the perspective of fauna and alien aesthetics, is there anything you’ve changed in that approach this time around given there’s an element of embedding yourself into the world?

Yeah, each of the planets has its own theme. Verticality in one, denser biomes in another for example. Plus, of course, unique flora and fauna! 

Some preview event chatter suggests there's more systems to play with this time around for more chaos. In previous outings such as FC4, however, chaos can sometimes be a real pain in the arse… how have you balanced the unbalanceable, in this respect?

Haha if you find chaos a “pain the arse”, do better! ;) But seriously, if you execute well it's controllable and we always play it for comedic effect. And even if you die, you are just reprinted in your Habitat.

There also seems to be a sentiment around farming in RotSP. What games that employ the idea of collection and expansion of home hubs did you look at and what's your own spin on that?

It's more gathering and collecting as themes, really. It's a game for people who love exploring and finding everything in the world. And then we wanted to reward you with base upgrades even if a lot of them are a joke about building a settlement which will never have inhabitants...

Traversal is a big deal in modern games, what comes first from a design sense when considering power-ups and tools to use in the world that also aid traversal?

We started with what would be fun to play with or do in the world. We had [all] made a lot of games in realistic settings so we were bored of normal human jumping and running. So sci fi tools, weird goo, and big jumps were what we built first!

On story, and to go back to being fired in the first place, there was actually a cool tale unfolding in two layers in the first game. Have you gone deeper this time, or are we still in similar realms?

We tried to layer the story even deeper this time. There are more live-action characters. More weird side opportunities and more weird corporate satire (hopefully). I think this time it all fits together better though, [and] where there isn't an ancient aliens thread, [which] we didn't quite pay off in the first game, in my opinion.

Will we encounter any friendlies that aren’t co-op partners in the sequel, or does everything still want to kill you?

There are non-aggressive creatures for sure, and your co-op buddy if you bring one, but no humanoid friendlies. It's something we are thinking about for game three though!

“Metroidvania” as a subgenre is a pretty loaded description across so many types of games. I always thought of JttSP as more of a Metroid Prime-like – but as a game designer, what defines these types of experiences in modern gaming and what have you used, but also evolved, for this sequel?

Metroidvania to me means starting with nothing, hitting obstacles and then finding tools or solutions then backtracking or exploring to go further… so we still have all of that. But we want to have multiple keys to each lock. So if you see a thing that needs to be burned, for example, you don't need a key, you just need fire if that makes sense -- it’s not always specific. And hopefully that's better for player storytelling!

Hope to catch you in person soon, and congrats on getting this sequel out to this point! (Go Blues!)

Thanks mate!

About the author

Written By Stephen Farrelly
Stephen Farrelly is a veteran journalist and editor with more than two decades experience in the worlds of gaming, entertainment, lifestyle and sport under his belt. He is a proud pug dad, loves art in all forms but particularly street and tattoo culture, and is the director of Swear Jar...
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