Cult Classic ‘Psychonauts’ Sequel to be Released in August
After years of teases, delays, crowd funding, and the eventual purchase by Microsoft, the long awaited sequel to Double Fine‘s 2005 classic platformer Psychonauts is due to be released on August 25, 2021. While it will be distributed by Microsoft, the game will be available for PS4, PS5 (via backward compatibility), MacOS, and Linux as well as Windows and Xbox.
Despite disappointing sales, the original game won over a set of die-hard fans who fell in love with the bizarre, colorful, and creative world as well as the game’s odd characters and fun twist on classic action-platforming gameplay. I was just a young kid when the original was released, but I loved every bit of it and found myself wanting more after the credits rolled. Based on a trailer released at E3, the sequel looks to be an expansion of the same things fans loved about the first. The trailer is full of interesting visuals and humor, while teasing much of the classic gameplay of the first, only bigger, stranger, and more bombastic.
The sequel looks to pick up shortly after the first left off. Players will once again play as the young psychonaut-to-be, Raz (played by Richard Horvitz of Invader Zim and Billy & Mandy fame), who having graduated from his training is ready to become a full fledged psychic spy. Much of the first game takes place inside the minds of various characters, as Raz must traverse surreal worlds inside people’s heads that each take the unique shape of their personal obsessions, traumas, and psychoses, and solve the problems plaguing the subject. He does so, using a wide array of psychic abilities of his own which help him both defeat enemies and traverse the wildly creative environments and solve puzzles. Each level features completely different designs and themes, from the famously paranoid “Milkman Conspiracy” level to the Risk-esque board game of “Waterloo World” which was one of my personal favorites.
The game had a complicated funding history, having first been crowdfunded via Fig starting in 2015, in a campaign that had to be certified by the SEC due to the investor base consisting of mostly non-accredited retail investors, i.e. gamers who wanted a sequel. In 2017, Starbreeze bought the distribution rights for the game for a cool $8 million to help digitally publish the game across all available platforms. In 2019, Microsoft bought Double Fine outright as well as paying an additional $13.2 million to Starbreeze for the distribution rights, giving the original Fig investors a 1.4x return on their money. In spite of the acquisition, Microsoft guaranteed that the game would still be released on all previously promised platforms with additional time being allotted for the game to get an upgraded release on Xbox Series X/S. It was a long and winding road for the game to get this far, but fans are likely happy it is almost at an end.
Psychonauts 2 has been a long time coming and I for one can’t wait to see what kinds of craziness Tim Schafer and company will be able to put in front of players. Hopefully they will have another classic on their hands.
