Psychonauts was one of my favorite games of the 2000s, as it took the then-waning 3D platforming genre and turned it into an incredibly creative and varied adventure filled with bizarre characters and their equally bizarre mindscapes. It became a sleeper hit, because it was critically acclaimed and a commercial failure. I had long given up on seeing a sequel, until developer Double Fine announced that, yes, Psychonauts 2 was in the works. Now, a decade and a half later, Psychonauts 2 is almost here.
Microsoft and Double Fine provided me with a preview build so I could get an early taste of the game. Long-awaited sequels can be very hit-or-miss affairs, but I was reassured by what I played. Psychonauts 2 looks and feels like the first game, keeping the same charming, wacky spirit, but incorporating a decade and a half of design and graphical advances. Psychonauts 2 is being developed for PC, Xbox (One and Series S/X), and PlayStation (4 and 5), and will be available on Xbox day one as part of Xbox Game Pass. I previewed the $59.99 Xbox version on an Xbox Series X console.
Basic Braining, Again
The preview build featured three game areas: the tutorial level in Dr. Loboto’s brain, the Compton’s Cookoff level in Psychonauts founder Compton Boole’s brain, and the “Cassie’s Collection” level in Psychic Six (a legendary group of psychics) member Cassie’s brain. But first, it helpfully provided a summary of the first Psychonauts game’s events, bridging the gap between the two titles.
Psychonauts 2 takes place only a few days after the end of the first Psychonauts game. The team from camp has rescued Truman Zanotto, the leader of the Psychonauts, from the mad dentist Dr. Loboto, and taken Loboto into custody. Unfortunately, Zanotto’s catatonic and Loboto isn’t talking, so Raz and the rest of the psychics need to dive into his brain as they travel to Psychonauts headquarters, the Motherlobe.
Incidentally, the actual rescue of Zanotto doesn’t take place in Psychonauts, but in a VR experience released in 2018, and researching this game was honestly the first time I heard about it. Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin is available on Steam for $19.99 if you want to see the rescue mission play out.
This leads into the tutorial level in Loboto’s brain. A psychic construct has been built in his mind, a mundane office environment designed to trick him into telling the team who directed him to kidnap Zanotto. Loboto sees through the construct, and soon the office becomes a weird nightmare of filing cabinets and teeth, with everything occurring inside the giant mouth of a deranged dentist who’s getting teeth extracted by another version of himself. Psychonauts 2 is straight up Psychonauts, from the start.
Loboto’s brain is a fun introduction to Psychonauts 2’s controls. You walk Raz down different hallways that give way to creepy mouths, as he’s reminded how to use his psychic powers. Narratively, it’s been only a few days between the two games, but the first Psychonauts came out 16 years ago—it’s nice to have a refresher. Raz controls like your average 3D platforming character, running with the left analog stick, jumping with the A button, interacting with the B button, and using melee attacks with the X button.
His psychic powers come into play with the shoulder buttons, inputs that let you assign four different powers (out of an eventual eight, but only half are made available to you at the start) to the triggers and bumpers. Raz can shoot ranged psychic blasts, light things on fire with his mind, lift and throw objects, and use levitation to either float slowly from the air or roll around the ground quickly on a psychic ball. It’s a nice roundup of powers from the original Psychonauts, while leaving plenty of room for more unique ones later.
Running around Loboto’s brain introduced me to the 3D platforming, puzzle-solving challenges, and fighting using Raz’s psychic powers. I used Levitation to quickly roll through crumbling tracks and float long distances between platforms, telekinetically move objects, fire mind bullets to dislodge obstacles, and light posters on fire with pyrokinesis to uncover passages.
Platforming sections were punctuated by fights, often in comfortably large, open areas where I was accosted by two enemy types. Censors are melee enemies, suited gremlins who attack you with large “No” stamps. Guilts are flying insects that drop heavy objects on you. Each enemy type has its own psychic power that’s effective against it: I fought Censors with basic, psychic-enhanced melee attacks, but I had to use psi blasts to take out the airborne Guilts. In later levels, the goop-like Doubts must be attacked with pyrokinesis, while the hammer-wielding Judges are best dealt with by using telekinesis to assault them with their own weapons.
Welcome to the Motherlobe
Raz is now a Psychonauts intern rather than a camper, and The Motherlobe is a sloping, sprawling sci-fi headquarters rather than a camp. From it, paths extend into different directions toward numerous facilities, most of which were inaccessible in the preview build.
Despite his heroics in the first game, Raz starts at the lowest rung in Psychonauts headquarters, where the psychic spies see him as a kid. It gives him plenty of room to grow, with different collectibles like glowing figments, mental baggage, and challenge cards letting him rank up to gain new abilities and points he can use to enhance his powers. It also introduces the Otto-matic vending machine that lets you spend in-game currency to obtain even more customizations. Motherlobe carries a different charm than the first game’s campgrounds, but it’s still loaded with personality as a borderline surreal office building.
More Puzzles Than Fighting
Psychonauts 2 generally feels good to play, with tight and varied controls for exploring areas. Each enemy is vulnerable to a type of psychic power, so fights are more like fast-paced puzzles that require you to avoid taking damage while throwing the right type of attack at the right type of energy. The melee attacks are soft, and dodge rolling isn’t very responsive, but I can see myself getting used to the combat’s rhythm. It also helps that fights aren’t nearly as common as platforming sections. I found myself running and jumping around roughly 80% of the time, and dealing with mental defenses the other 20%.
This balance really comes through in the preview build’s second section: Compton’s Cookout. Compton Boole is riddled with anxiety, and that translates into a Chopped-like cooking show in his brain. In this level, giant sheep-like hand puppets demand certain dishes be prepared for them under a time limit. These dishes require ingredients picked from the audience, which are unsettlingly cheerful food items that you must grab with telekinesis and carry to preparation stations to slice, blend, boil, and sauté. Each station is located behind a short obstacle course, so Raz must keep his balance and avoid taking damage while keeping his mental grip on each food item.
Compton’s Cookout is a creative and unnerving challenge that fits well into Psychonauts’ style. It also focuses almost entirely on platforming and puzzle-solving challenges. The only fights of note in this level are an introductory brawl when the first Judge appears, and a few commercial breaks between cooking challenges where you fight a group of standard enemies.
The third section, Cassie’s Collection, takes place inside the psychic Cassie’s mind, where her psyche is fragmented into four separate personalities. It’s built around one of those personalities, the Librarian, calling on Raz to hunt down the other three. Raz needs the help of a complete Cassie, so he runs around her mind to bring together these personas.
The structure is much more conventional here than Compton’s Cookout, taking Raz around a crowded library to find Teacher Cassie and a large East Asian-themed harbor area to get assistance from Counterfeiter Cassie. Here Raz learns another power, Project, that lets him summon a paper-thin duplicate of himself to solve puzzles. Raz’s projection can fit through bars and mail slots, letting it pull switches and open doors Raz can’t reach.
The Strange, Colorful Worlds of the Mind
Psychonauts 2’s levels are loaded with the same quirky, colorful, varied style as the first Psychonauts. Each brain is distinct, with wildly different palettes, obstacles, and set pieces. Characters are all cartoonishly diverse, evoking Nightmare Before Christmas, Parappa the Rapper, and The Amazing World of Gumball in the characters’ unique appearances.
The game is crisp, colorful, and plays smoothly, and this can almost entirely be attributed to the visual design. While Psychonauts 2 looks great, it doesn’t have the extreme levels of polish and visual technology seen in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. Of course, Psychonauts 2 is designed to simply be an engaging, multi-platform game that also runs on the PS4 and Xbox One; it’s not a PS5-exclusive, graphical showcase like Rift Apart.
Upcoming Thinkpiece
Psychonauts 2 is shaping up to be a worthy sequel to the beloved sleeper hit. It exudes charm and personality, with entertaining and varied platforming. The snippets I played made me excited for the other mindscapes that will appear in the full game. Strictly speaking, Psychonauts 2 looks like it closely follows the original game’s formula; that’s not a bad thing. That means there’s endless room for variety, and that the sequel is being driven by the same creativity and passion that made the first game so good. Psychonauts 2 comes out August 25, 2021.
