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.
