Client: Thunderful
Platform: PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch
Release: March 5th 2026
Campaign period: June 8th 2025 – ongoing

Overview

Plan of Attack worked with long-term partner Thunderful on the campaign for Planet of Lana II: Children of the Leaf from announcement, to launch, and beyond. The game is a stunning cinematic puzzle platformer developed by Wishfully Studios and the sequel to Planet of Lana - for which Plan of Attack also handled the communications campaign.

Plan of Attack had fantastic success handling communications for the first Planet of Lana, placing us in a strong position going into the sequel. We were able to leverage the reputation established with the first title to start off strong with momentum that we were able to carry forward. As the campaign progressed we made good use of the studio’s ability to create quality video assets and took advantage of high-quality preview builds to secure strong preview coverage from top outlets. We established Planet of Lana II as a highly anticipated top-tier indie title leading into an excellent review campaign where we secured high-scoring reviews from top-tier videogames outlets and even some mainstream publications.

The Campaign

The campaign for Planet of Lana II, kicked off with an announcement trailer that debuted at the Xbox Summer Games Showcase on June 8th, 2025. Throughout the rest of the year, we distributed a series of press releases and smaller media blasts, as well as handling booking for appointments to go hands-on with the game at gamescom. News beats included the game’s Switch 2 platform announcement, an extended gameplay trailer that debuted at Xbox’s October show and a trailer that appeared at the Unity Awards in December.

In 2026, we had multiple beats planned to ramp up to the game's March 5th release. We kicked off with an exclusive unedited gameplay video arranged with IGN, then moved into an exclusive hands-on preview event, combined with REPLACED, another Thunderful title we handle, that took place for select media at Wishfully’s Gothenburg studios. Previews were embargoed to drop alongside the game’s release date announcement and the news that a demo was coming, ensuring that we had positive sentiment dropping alongside the news story, hyping people up to try the demo with awareness that the full launch was on the horizon. The launch of the demo, a series of dev diary videos and multiple interviews with press led us into a stellar review campaign.

Throughout the campaign, we achieved exceptional coverage results. Our key news beats all achieved hundreds of hits and were covered by top-tier outlets in key territories in the US and Europe as well as a host of secondary markets across the EU, South America and beyond. We opportunistically leveraged the excellent work Wishfully did having the game in a strong state early to underpin our news beats with hands-on coverage that backed our desire to position the game as a premium indie title - the game was described as being like “a Star Wars story made by Studio Ghibli” to give one of our favourite examples. We carried this through to secure an impressive 382 reviews, including a host of 9/10s and 10/10s, where the game was described as being “a visually intoxicating journey” that is “deserving of a spot on the narrative-platformer Mount Rushmore”.

A total of 2,970 pieces of coverage were published on Planet of Lana II. When it comes to evaluating the success of the campaign, the numbers speak for themselves.

What We Did

• 14 global press releases distributed + published on GamesPress (32 including localised press releases)

  • IP announcement - June 2025

  • Planet of Lana 1 million players - August 2025

  • Nintendo Switch 2 announcement - September 2025

  • ID@Xbox Showcase extended gameplay - October 2025

  • Unity Awards new gameplay - December 2025

  • Unedited new 10 minutes of gameplay - January 2026

  • Music developer diary with Takeshi Furukawa - January 2026

  • Release date announcement - February 2026

  • Planet of Lana II and REPLACED demo announcement - February 2026

  • New gameplay video from Indie Fan Fest - February 2026

  • New gameplay video from IGN Fan Fest - February 2026

  • Puzzles and Design developer diary - March 2026

  • Out Now announcement - March 2026

  • Accolades trailer - March 2026

• gamescom 2025 bookings

• Proposed and booked exclusive Planet of Lana II/REPLACED preview event in Gothenberg, Sweden

• Secured exclusive placement of video content with IGN, including at IGN Fan Fest

• Successful interview pitching at multiple stages of the campaign

• Extensive review key outreach with press, including follow-ups

Coverage + Impressions

The Planet of Lana II campaign generated 2,970 total pieces of global coverage, including 2509 news hits, 79 previews and 382 reviews.

Coverage appeared across 60 countries, with the strongest traction in key target territories including the United States, United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany and Spain. We also received strong pickup in countries like Brazil, the Netherlands and Poland, among others. The game earned pickup from both mainstream and gaming outlets, including IGN, GameSpot, Screen Rant, Terra Game On, Game Rant, Jeux Video, GAMINGbible, PC Gamer, Vandal, Le Monde, NRK and GamesRadar+.

Press Coverage Breakdown

• 2509 News stories

• 79 Previews

• 382 Reviews

• 2970 Total pieces of coverage

Press Coverage Reach Highlights (Top outlets by reach)

• IGN (US)

• Le Monde (France)

• NRK (Norway)

• Terra Game On (Brazil)

• Mirror (UK)

• Screen Rant (USA)

• Gamespot (USA)

• Game Rant (USA)

Gothenburg Preview Event

We proposed the idea of holding a physical preview event for Planet of Lana II and REPLACED towards the end of 2025 to make use of the fact that the build for the game was in a strong position early and ensure that we secured preview coverage from key top-tier outlets. The mere act of holding a physical event positioned the game as a top-tier indie with prestige. It was attended by IGN, Polygon, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, The Gamer and JeuxVideo and the positive coverage from these key targets reinforced its credibility with gaming audiences and the rest of the media. We were also able to carry this momentum into the demo that launched shortly after - media who weren’t at the event were keen to try the game themselves and the early access we gave them to the demo under embargo, essentially gave us a second round of hands-on content dropping just ahead of the demo going live for the public.

Review Campaign Success

Securing 382 reviews for Planet of Lana II, 90 from verified OpenCritic outlets and 64 from Metacritic outlets, is a sign of how successful the campaign was. We were very happy to be able to get strong pickup from top-tier outlets across multiple countries, regions and formats, and we even had some success breaking beyond traditional games media to get reviews from mainstream media outlets like France’s premiere news outlet, Le Monde, and Norwegian public broadcaster, NRK.

The game scored very well, securing plenty of 10/10s and 9/10s. Praise included Polygon placing it on a pedestal as “the best game I’ve played yet in 2026”, GAMINGbible calling it a “new all-time favourite” in their 9/10 review, Nintendo Life describing it as a "visually intoxicating journey” in their 9/10 review and Game Rant placing it “on the narrative-platformer Mount Rushmore” in their 9/10 review.

Critical Response Highlights

Across reviews and previews, the sentiment was almost universally positive, with recurring praise for:

• Stunning visuals

• Effective and emotional storytelling

• Fun and well balanced puzzles using companion abilities

• Excellent sound design and soundtrack created by Takeshi Furukawa

Takeaways

The campaign showed the results that can be yielded by brand building, with the work we did establishing the first Planet of Lana giving us an excellent base to build on. We were able to respond to and make use of opportunities as they emerged, from exclusive showcase opportunities, to generating hands-on impressions content.

The campaign showed the value of the following in a campaign:

• building and leveraging strong relationships with platform holders

• establishing a reputation for an IP over time

• being ready to recognise and respond to opportunities