Episode 16 - So Long 2020!

Let’s be real for a moment: 2020 kinda sucked! It was a year where the weight of history was on the world and not in the best way. What’s been inspiring in all of this are the ways in which folks have persevered and pushed themselves to help their communities during the pandemic. It’s been the ways in which folks have adjusted to a new and very strange normal.

For us here at Double Fine, it meant completely re-thinking how we could continue work on Psychonauts 2 and do it in a way that kept everyone safe and a little less stressed. Working from home and moving everything to what I can only assume was The Cloud was tricky but it happened. We brought on new staff members including myself, showed off one of most fantastical levels to the public, and found ways to spend time together as a team. We had parties, we hosted AMAs with fans, and more.

Times were definitely strange but Psychonauts 2 is doing well and will release next year. You can play the whole thing from start to finish. The content is a lock. We’re working out bugs and streamlining levels, using nifty developer tricks to polish things into a mind-bending sheen. In the video above, Tim looks back at 2020 and outlines the work that’s ahea

As we move closer to the launch in 2021, we’ll be sharing more and more of the game with everyone. If you're absolutely desperate for more Tim right this second, you can check out his recent interview with IGN's Ryan McCaffrey. There’s tons of fun things we hope to share with you that we can’t quite talk about yet. Point is: 2021 is gonna be a blast. A mental blast. A pyrokinetic and frenetic sprint of game design and work that ends with Raz right there on your GameBox. This means that we’re going to start officially sorting through backer tiers and getting all the information we need to make rewards happen. The first of these will be a survey for backers whose names will be in the Psychonauts Brain Frame (AKA The Hall of Brains). We’ll be sending that out in the new year and working through other tiers as well.

We do have one request from backers: if you haven’t, please go to your Fig settings and make sure your full name is listed on your profile. While we will send up one more survey later on to reconfirm names for the credits—some folks may have gotten married or changed their names for all sorts of reasons since the campaign launch—as this will help us to collect that data. Because the game is gonna be here in what hopefully feels like a blink of an eye.

Every year, we send out holiday cards to coworkers, friends of Double Fine, and others. This year’s picture was done by Double Fine art wizard Chris Lam! It features Raz and the various Psychonauts interns you’ll meet in Psychonauts 2. Their sled is teetering at the top of a hill. It’s a bit scary to have a sled full of awesome folks at the top of a big hill. It’s scary, in some ways, to make a game as well. But like the interns huddled on the sled, we’re diving into whatever comes next. No matter what happens, it will be a memorable ride and we are extremely grateful to have all of you along for the fun as well.

Have happy holidays and a great new year, friends. We’ll see you in the Motherlobe!

-Heather