Survival and Family Values

The second you start Primal Planet, you're already facing the harsh environment by being chased the second you press start. Every area presents multiple threats: nature blocks your path, building-sized dinosaurs hunt you, and mysterious aliens seek to abduct you. Combine those elements with gorgeous 2D pixel art design and full-on action at every corner, and you have a well-put-together game.

Wordless storytelling presents unique challenges, but Primal Planet handles it masterfully. You play as a man who only cares about his wife, daughter, and friends in his village. Alien invaders kidnap his daughter, and cannibal villagers destroy his camp, shattering his peaceful life. Now alone, he must figure out how to reclaim everything he held dear. The game tells this entire story through actions and animations, with cave paintings providing additional context that makes the emotional journey feel deeply personal.

With Spear in Hand...

The gameplay revolves around movement, jumping, and attacking with weapons like small blades or spears you can craft or find. What makes it special is how these mechanics combine. Rolling helps you dodge attacks, but pair it with a jump and you can cover much greater distances. You can also throw spears to climb higher walls. Every action feels smooth and fluid, with responsive controls that make the game simply enjoyable to play.

While jumping around searching for your family and friends, you'll notice that this dangerous world can be turned to your advantage. Giant wooden barbed branches blocking your path? Light your spear on fire and burn them down. Poisoned by a plant? Craft an antidote to cure yourself. Being attacked by a large creature? Lure it into a bone trap you've placed.

I've always preferred crafting systems that require meaningful resource gathering over systems that hand you everything freely. Primal Planet excels here by making you actively seek out materials. Whether you're crafting healing items, weapons, or tools to overcome environmental obstacles, the system feels purposeful rather than repetitive.

You're assisted by a small dino buddy named Sino that helps in combat. You can upgrade its health, damage, and speed, and it heals itself by eating small creatures or meat you throw to it. While it can't permanently die and provides consistent damage support, I found it easy to forget about during exploration. It's a helpful gameplay addition, though it doesn't add much to the emotional story.

Once you save other villagers, you can help rebuild the camp. They assist you by gathering materials around their huts for crafting and teaching you new abilities or craftable items. You can also hire them for a small cost to follow and help you in battle—if wounded, they'll return safely to camp. Additionally, you can establish camps at key locations throughout the world, creating convenient fast-travel points for a small fee.

A Dangerous but Beautiful World

The art style was by far my favorite aspect of Primal Planet. The pixel graphics feel genuinely alive thanks to smooth animation and distinctive coloring that makes each area pop. From jungle canopies filled with trees and vines to underwater caverns, every environment feels dynamic. What really sells the living world is the attention to background details: wind moving through plants, creatures engaged in their own battles separate from your adventure. True to Metroidvania tradition of having secret, there are 50 hidden areas throughout the map for dedicated explorers.

The map system, however, proved frustrating throughout the entire experience. It's often difficult to read or understand your location, and the color coding lacks any legend to help understand what you're looking at. The absence of custom markers is even more painful—you can't mark areas to revisit later or note blocked paths for when you gain new abilities. In a genre built around backtracking and exploration, these limitations feel like genuine oversights.

The main story delivers a deeply satisfying conclusion that ties everything together beautifully. With the core plot clocking in at around 5–6 hours, there's additional content for those wanting more. You can hunt for achievements or pursue a secret ending involving alien technology and portals. Unfortunately, this alternate ending feels anticlimactic—after all the buildup, I just sat there and said "okay" to myself.

Overall

I highly recommend Primal Planet for fans of Metroidvanias and narrative-driven adventures. Knowing that solo developer Seethingswarm created this alone makes it remarkable. Sure, the map system has issues and the secret ending disappoints, but the smooth gameplay and touching story more than make up for these shortcomings. At $20 on Steam, GOG, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch, it's well worth experiencing.

Disclosure: We received a free review copy of this product.