Journey to the Savage Planet developer Typhoon Studios has reformed as Raccoon Logic, following the closure of Google’s Stadia Games & Entertainment. According to GamesIndustry.biz, the team is composed of 75% of former Typhoon Studios employees, including its founders. A minority investment in the studio has been made by Tencent, though the team will remain independent. Since Google has decided to no longer produce Stadia games internally, Raccoon Logic was also able to reclaim the rights and IP for Journey to the Savage Planet, which means that more content or sequels could be produced by the “new” team in the future.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, executive producer and co-founder Reid Schneider discussed the importance of getting back the rights to the game.
“These projects become your baby,” says Schneider. “You put so much time into them, and it’s so hard to create a new IP that actually resonates. There are bodies everywhere of games where people were like ‘Meh, okay…’ so it felt like we had bottled lightning, and we had this unfinished business, all these cool ideas of what we wanted to do next. So to get that back was great.”
Raccoon Logic getting back the IP and code for Journey to the Savage Planet is a huge win, but it actually gets even better: Google allowed the team to also retain the projects that it had been working on prior to the closure of Google’s Stadia Games & Entertainment in February. It’s a shocking move, and one that will help the team pick-up where it left off.
“For all the people working at Raccoon Logic, this is a continuation so all that stuff isn’t lost,” Schneider tells GamesIndustry.biz. “We can just pick up where we left off in February.”
Journey to the Savage Planet has had an interesting journey since Typhoon Studios was purchased by Google. The game was released on Stadia on February 1st, the same day that Google announced the closure of Stadia Games & Entertainment. Because of the closure, the team was unable to fix bugs in the Stadia version, which apparently left it unplayable. Eventually the issue was fixed, but not without some headaches from fans! Now that the game’s developer is truly independent again, it seems like these issues can be fully avoided.
Have you played Journey to the Savage Planet? Are you happy that the game’s developer managed to stick together? Let us know in the comments or share directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!
