Psychonauts 2

To uncover the mystery, Raz enters the mindscapes of various characters to discover clues. Within these mindscapes, Raz can perform a variety of new and returning psychic abilities that allow him to maneuver through their often-twisted minds and battle the mental creatures they produce. The original Psychonauts, released in 2005, was met with critical praise, but failed to sell well and was considered a commercial failure for several years after its first release. Double Fine and game director Tim Schafer had expressed the desire to create a sequel to Psychonauts, but the financial demand of developing the game stalled any serious attempt for several years. Double Fine regained the intellectual property to Psychonauts from Majesco in 2011, allowing them to rerelease the game on modern platforms, which saw strong sales and increased demand from players for a sequel. Double Fine sought to acquire part of its financial capital to fund the developments of Psychonauts 2 through a 3.3 million crowd-funding and investment drive through Fig, launched simultaneously with the game's announcement. The campaign raised nearly 4 million by the beginning of 2016. While Psychonauts 2 was initially to be published by Starbreeze Studios under a publishing-only deal, Starbreeze fell into bankruptcy in 2018. This acquisition allowed Double Fine to complete the game as envisioned, rather than dropping the planned content. Upon release, Psychonauts 2 received generally positive reviews from critics, with many feeling it lived up to the quality of its predecessor. Praise was directed at its platforming, level design, visuals, writing, and tone, while criticism fell on aspects of the gameplay and the boss battles.

• Title — Psychonauts 2 • Developer — Double Fine • Publisher — Xbox Game Studios • Director — Tim Schafer • Producer — * Andy Alamano • Gavin Carter • Naoko Takamoto • Designer — * Seth Marinello • Zak McClendon • Programmer — Kee Chi • Artist — Lisette Titre-Montgomery • Writer — Tim Schafer • Composer — Peter McConnell • Engine — Unreal Engine 4 • Platforms — * PlayStation 4 • Windows • Xbox One • Xbox Series X/S • Linux • macOS • Released — * PS4, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S • August 25, 2021 • Linux, macOS • May 24, 2022 • Genre — Platform, action-adventure • Modes — Single-player

• Illustration — Raz's powers and combat moves are used to defeat enemies. Depicted, telekinesis is used to throw an object at an enemy. Psychonauts 2 is a single player platform game played in a third-person view. The player controls Razputin "Raz" Aquato, a ten-year-old child runaway of a circus acrobat family, who possesses powerful psychic abilities that allow him to delve into the minds of others. Raz is a new graduate of the Psychonauts, an agency of psychic spies. His acrobatic skills are used to deftly navigate environments in the game; he can run, jump, scale walls and platforms, and slide along rails, but cannot swim due to a family curse. Raz hones his abilities into an array of psychic powers that allow him to use pyrokinesis, levitation, telekenesis and so on. Several powers return from the original game, with additions such as Mental Connection, which Raz uses to tether between floating points. Up to four powers can be assigned at once, and are swapped out via a pop-up interface. Each of the game's levels exist in their respective character's consciousness. Levels often require completion of a goal to resolve the character's psychological issues. Environmental design in each level gives insight into the character's life experience and mental state. In one level, Raz enters the mind of a character crippled by alcoholism. The level design alludes to the character's struggles, with beer bottles used as set pieces. Another character develops a gambling addiction; their level is set in a warped casino-hospital amalgam. Combat foes in the levels are typically personifications of mental phenomena. Censors attack Raz with stamps, flying Regrets drop weights, and Enablers buff other enemies' health and attacks. In fights, Raz combines his abilities with melee attacks and dodges. When Raz falls through a level or depletes his health, he respawns at a checkpoint. Several levels culminate in a boss battle. • Illustration — Raz using levitation to traverse the Quarry When not progressing the story, Raz can explore the four distinct hubs of a large overworld. He begins in the Motherlobe, a corporate building used as the Psychonauts' headquarters. Later, he can explore the surrounding areas: an open Quarry, the wooded Questionable Area? and the Green Needle Gulch swampland. Raz can interact with many of the world's characters, and complete side activities and scavenger hunts. Completed levels may be revisited. Across the levels and hubs, Raz amasses several collectible items, such as Figments, Memory Vaults and Nuggets of Wisdom. Some items, such as PSI Cards, increase Raz's rank and unlock ability upgrades. In-game currency can be spent on Pins, which provide passive gameplay effects such as health kits, and other items.

Psychonauts 2 is set in a fictional, alternate world in which psychic powers exist thanks to the fictional element Psitanium - a substance brought to the planet by several meteors. The Psychonauts are an international espionage agency focused on psychic peacekeeping, scientific research of the human mind, and the development of psychic-based technologies. • Illustration — Razputin "Raz" Aquato In Psychonauts, the player-character Razputin "Raz" Aquato is a young acrobat fascinated by the Psychonauts, but shunned by his family who fear his psychic abilities. He runs away and infiltrates Whispering Rock summer camp, a training facility for young Psychonaut recruits. While there, he helps to foil a plan by the demented Dr. Loboto and misguided Coach Oleander to steal the brains of his fellow campers and the Psychonaut agents Sasha Nein and Milla Vodello, while befriending Psychonauts founder Ford Cruller and Lili Zanotto, the daughter of the Grand Head of the Psychonauts, Truman Zanotto. Raz's father, Augustus, comes to accept Raz's goal of being a Psychonaut, revealing his own weak psychic abilities. Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin follows immediately from the end of Psychonauts, where Raz joins Sasha, Milla, Coach and Lili to rescue Truman from being captured by Dr. Loboto.

In addition to returning characters from the previous games, Psychonauts 2 introduces the other founding members of the Psychonauts alongside Ford Cruller, known as the Psychic Six: Otto Mentallis, chief inventor who assists Nein and provides new psychic equipment; Compton Boole, who pioneered telepathy with animals; Bob Zanotto, uncle to Truman Zanotto and capable of communicating with plant life; Helmut Fullbear, Bob's husband and a psychic actor whose body was lost and his brain was kept in a jar for over 20 years, making him lose his five senses; and Cassie O'Pia, an author of the self-help book "Mindswarm" who is lost in a multiple personality disorder. Additional Psychonauts staff at their headquarters, the Motherlobe, include Hollis Forsythe, Second Head of the Psychonauts, Nick Johnsmith, the only non-psychic member of the Psychonauts who works in the mailroom section, and a group of interns training to become agents. These interns include Samantha "Sam" Boole, elder sister of Dogen and granddaughter to Compton who can communicate with animals like her family; Adam Gette, the African-British keeper of the Psychonauts' history board who telekinetically powers yo-yos as a weapon; Morris Martinez, a radio aficionado who travels around via levitating wheelchair; Gisu Nerumen, an engineering ward to Otto and levitating skateboarder; Norma Natividad, a shrewd manipulator and talented pyrokinetic; and Lizzie Natividad, Norma's cryokinetic and moody younger sister. Raz's family beyond Augustus are also introduced, including Augustus' wife and Raz's mother Donatella, older siblings Dion and Frazie, younger siblings Mirtala and Queepie, and their Nona, mother to Augustus.

After capturing Loboto and recovering Truman's comatose body, Raz joins the other Psychonauts inside Loboto's mind to learn his co-conspirator's identity, but they find his psyche secured against their efforts. However, Raz sees a vision of a woman whom Sasha identifies as Maligula, a cruel hydrokinetic who flooded and destroyed the nation of Grulovia's capital. Maligula was believed killed by the Psychic Six, but her followers, the Deluginists, have looked to necromancy to resurrect her. The senior agents suspect a double agent within the Psychonauts aided Loboto in kidnapping Truman. At the Motherlobe, Hollis assigns Raz to work as an intern in the mail room under Nick. Raz finds Nick's brainless body and a key to a room at the Lady Luctopus Casino. During a training exercise, Raz uses his powers to convince Hollis to bring the interns on the mission. However, he inadvertently causes her to develop a gambling addiction and is forced to battle an incarnation of Lady Luctopus herself inside Hollis' mind to undo this to get the mission back on track. Inside the room, Raz finds evidence of the Deluginists and a slip of paper indicating Lili as the double agent. Raz shows Lili the paper he found, but she refuses to believe it and runs off. To Raz's surprise, Truman reveals he is faking his coma and urges Raz to bring Ford Cruller to the Motherlobe and reconstitute his split personalities, as he holds the secret behind Maligula. Raz does so, along the way helping the other Psychic Six members with their mental traumas that developed after their fight with Maligula. Once Ford is whole, he explains that Maligula is actually Lucrecia "Lucy" Mux (née Galochio), the previously unknown seventh member of the Psychic Six, (once known as the "Psychic Seven") and Raz's grandaunt, who was in a romantic relationship with Ford after the death of her husband Gelsin. Lucy returned to Grulovia to quell an uprising, but under its leader Gzar Theodore Malik's abusive treatment, Lucy created the Maligula personality as a fight-or-flight response. However, Maligula went out of control and flooded the country, killing peaceful protestors and forcing the Gzar and his family into exile. The Psychic Six defeated Maligula, but Ford secretly spared her life and used one of Otto 's inventions, the Astralathe, a device that makes permanent alterations to the mind, to bury the Maligula personality deep inside Lucy's mind and make her believe she was her own sister, lead protestor Marona "Nona" Aquato, who died with her own husband Lazarus Lazlo during the flooding. Ford also altered Marona's son Augustus' memories to accept Lucrecia as his mother. Finally, Ford used the Astralathe to split his own mind to forget about Lucy as he mourned for her. Raz, horrified by the revelation, runs off to warn his family, but Ford warns that the family' s memories will unravel and they might attack her, triggering the Maligula personality in the process. Ford and Raz find Nona in the nearby Green Needle Gulch, home of the Psychic Six, where the Astralathe is kept, as Nona shows signs of remembering her time as Lucy. Ford determines that with the Psychic Six's help, they can use the Astralathe to create a further hole in Nona's mind to banish the Maligula personality permanently. Within Nona's mind, they learn that she had been already recalling elements of Lucy, and was the one to convince Raz to go to Whispering Rock in her subconscious as an indirect means to call for the Psychonauts' help. As Ford and Raz prepare to banish Maligula, Raz is suddenly removed from Nona's mind by Truman, who was called by suspicious intern Norma. Finding Truman's actions suspicious, Raz and Lili enter his mind and discover his brain is actually that of Nick, who is revealed to be Gristol Malik, Gzar Theodore's son. Gristol posed as Nick to infiltrate the Psychonauts and get revenge for his family's downfall. He instituted a plan to have Loboto replace Truman's brain with his, using Truman's position to revive Maligula, destroy the Psychonauts, and remake Grulovia. The other Psychonauts arrive too late to prevent Maligula 's reawakening. Torn by the confusion, Maligula lashes out and attacks the area, forming a storm that swarms Green Needle Gulch. Raz, Lili, and Norma are the only ones lucky enough to escape. As Lili leaves to find Truman's brain, Raz races back to his family, now aware of the truth, who assist Raz in reaching Maligula with an advanced acrobat technique and entering her mind. Raz battles the Maligula personality with the other interns, summoned by Norma, weakening her until Nona can emerge. She and Raz combine their powers to seal Maligula into the depths created by the Astralathe. In the aftermath, Nona is pardoned and reconnects with Ford, Truman's brain is restored, Gristol is imprisoned for therapy, Loboto escapes to retrieve his child from Whispering Rock, and Raz and the interns graduate to become junior agents.

Double Fine's first title as a studio was Psychonauts, released in 2005. The title was considered a commercial failure, but was highly praised by critics for its characters and writing and gained a cult following. In the years following its release, fans and game journalists urged Tim Schafer, CEO of Double Fine and principal creative lead on the game, to develop a sequel to the title. Schafer had expressed interest in working on the Psychonauts franchise again, with the company having envisioned larger story arcs for the game's characters over the course of its development. The development of the sequel would require a publisher that was interested in the game, and Double Fine approached publishers with the idea; Schafer said that in these pitches, he pointed out the large number of both legitimate sales through digital distribution and through the illegitimate means of software piracy. After Double Fine's success with the concurrent development and publishing of several smaller games, such as Costume Quest and Iron Brigade, Schafer felt more comfortable about embarking on a sequel, knowing that it need not obstruct the creation of any newer properties. Despite this, the publishers continued to turn down the idea. Some called the concept too creative or too obscure, according to Schafer. For others, with whom Schafer said he had good relations, the deals they offered did not fit with the scale Double Fine had planned for the game. In February 2012, Markus Persson, at the time the owner of Mojang, made a public offer to fund a sequel to Schafer through Twitter. Later that day, a company representative for Double Fine stated that Persson and Schafer were discussing the possibility, without further affirmation. Persson noted that the anticipated costs that Double Fine would need would be an estimated $18 million, far exceeding what was initially expected to fund and cautioned fans to avoid hyping the funding possibility. Persson and Schafer met at the Game Developers Conference in March 2012; no definitive plans were made for funding a sequel, however. In February 2013, Persson officially stated that he was no longer directly trying to fund the sequel, commenting that he did not "have the time at the moment to even try to get educated enough to make an 18 million dollar deal", though would be open to the idea at a later time after he left game development; Persson did note other potential investors have stepped forward to help any such effort.

At the 2015 Game Awards, Schafer announced Double Fine's plans to work on Psychonauts 2 using a crowdfunding campaign through Fig. The company sought $3.3 million in funding for the game, which represented approximately one-third of the planned development costs, and would augment money being put in by Double Fine and a third-party investor. Schafer noted that while the amount was the same that they had raised for their Broken Age Kickstarter, which by the time of its release had significantly overrun its budget, he felt the studio was in a better position to manage the costs and processes necessary to deliver Psychonauts 2 on schedule. Schafer noted that this funding approach — bringing in money from multiple investors instead of from a single publisher — is similar to the approach taken by the movie industry, and further, that the use of crowdfunding can alleviate some of the traditional risks associated with investment, being an effective means of proving public interest in a title. Mere days after the announcement of the Psychonauts 2 campaign, Double Fine announced the development of Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin, a publisher-funded virtual reality game for the PlayStation VR. The game is a smaller standalone chapter that serves as a bridge between the original game and its sequel, featuring Raz and the other psychonauts rescuing Truman Zanotto, tying into the conclusion of Psychonauts. During the campaign, Schafer confirmed that in addition to voice actors, several team members who worked on the original game would return for the sequel, including Erik Wolpaw as writer, Peter Chan and Scott Campbell as artists, and Peter McConnell as the composer. 2 Player Productions, a video production company who had previously worked with Double Fine to document the development of Broken Age, would be similarly documenting the creation of Psychonauts 2. Double Fine planned to use Unreal Engine 4 to develop the sequel, allowing them to save time and money that would otherwise be spent developing a custom game engine, as they had done in the past. The campaign reached its target funding goal with five days left in its 38-day campaign. Upon completion, a total of $3,829,024 had been raised from 24,109 backers, with about $1,874,000 (48%) coming from those who opted to invest in the game compared to those who chose the more traditional reward-based options. Some of this funding was tied up in process with the Security and Exchange Commission to authorize Fig's use of unaccredited investors; Fig during this time covered Double Fine's development costs from their own capital. The matter was resolved by September 2016, assuring Double Fine will receive the amount funded or invested. In February 2016, Zak McClendon, who had previously worked as design director at 2K Marin and Harmonix announced he had been hired as lead designer for Psychonauts 2. In February 2017, it was announced that Starbreeze Studios had invested $8 million to help digitally publish the game across all platforms. They would recoup the investment by gaining 85% of the profit on sales, after the Fig investors are accounted for, until it is recovered, and then take 60% beyond that. The investment only affected the distribution, as Double Fine retains all control on the intellectual property and the development process. Double Fine had originally planned on a 2018 release for the title, but announced in December 2017 that with the game in full development and their planned roadmap towards release completed, they did not expect to release the game until at least 2019. Double Fine premiered the game's first full trailer at The Game Awards 2018 in December 2018. Psychonauts 2 was in alpha at this time. By June 2019 Double Fine had been acquired by Microsoft as part of Xbox Game Studios. Microsoft purchased the publishing rights for the game from Starbreeze for 13.2 million. Despite the sale, Double Fine stated that Psychonauts 2 would still be released on all previously announced platforms (not being exclusive to Microsoft platforms). The Microsoft acquisition allowed Double Fine to pay back the Fig investors earlier at a 139% return and increasing subsequent revenue-based return on investments from 70 to 85%. Schafer said in a 2020 interview that prior to Microsoft's acquisition, they were at a point that they cut the boss fights out of the game due to lack of funds, but were able to re-add them afterward.

In July 2019, Double Fine announced that they had delayed the game's release until 2020, wanting to make sure they make the game as good as players are expecting. Double Fine announced in July 2020 that the game was further delayed to 2021, which will allow for an Xbox Series X-optimized version to be released as well. A release date for the game was officially announced at E3 2021. Double Fine announced on Twitter that the game had gone gold on August 6, 2021. On August 23, 2021, Double Fine revealed that the macOS and Linux versions had been delayed to an unannounced future date. Both versions were eventually released on May 24, 2022. Double Fine, along with 2 Player Productions, documented the development of Psychonauts 2, and released a documentary, Double Fine PsychOdyssey, for free on YouTube in February 2023.

Most of the game's original voice actors from Psychonauts returned to voice their characters, notably Richard Horvitz and Nikki Rapp as the voices of Raz and Lili respectively. New to Psychonauts 2 includes Jack Black, who has worked on previous Double Fine games, as Helmut Fullbear, and Elijah Wood, who also had provided voicework with Black in Broken Age, as Nick Johnsmith. As an easter egg casting, Rikki Simons voices the embodiment of one of Raz's powers; Horvitz and Simons had previously voiced the characters Zim and GIR in the animated show Invader Zim. Kimberly Brooks, who voiced Hollis Forsythe, won a BAFTA Award for Performer in a Supporting Role for her work on Psychonauts 2.

Psychonauts 2 was revealed to be Double Fine's best-selling game, selling at least 1.7 million copies by April 1, 2022. This was stated by the game's art director Lisette Titre-Montgomery on Twitter shortly after her last day of employment at Double Fine.