Double Fine and partner 2 Player Productions have released an astounding 32-part documentary delving into the development ofPsychonauts 2. Double Fine has a long history of offering insight into how it makes games. That’s been in question since the studio was acquired by Microsoft, but it appears to have at least continued forPsychonauts 2. The documentary, dubbed thePsychOdyssey, is available to view now for free on YouTube.
Double Fine first worked with 2 Player Productions on theDouble Fine Adventuredocumentary. TheDouble Fine Adventuredocuments the development of theKickstarter-funded adventure gameBroken Age. That documentary was celebrated as much or more as the game itself, due to the kind of access that 2 Player Productions was given to developers, meetings, and Double Fine game director Tim Schafer.
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The effort started with theDouble Fine Adventureappears to have continued through the development ofPsychonauts 2. Double Fine explains that 2 Player Productions has been involved with the project going back to itsinitial Fig crowdfunding effort in 2015. In the years since, 2 Player Productions accrued over five thousand hours of footage, which has been cut down to create the 32-episodeDouble Fine PsychOdyssey.
Double Fine PsychOdyssey’s release may feel like a surprise, givenPsychonauts 2was released over a year and a half ago. But thePsychOdyssey’s origins go all the way back to 2016, when a documentary making to theDouble Fine Adventurewas promised to backers on Fig. In other words, this has been a long time coming, and it’s nice to see that Double Fine is making the entire documentary available toPsychonautsfans across the world for free.
As noted, theDouble Fine PsychOdysseyis 32 episodes long. Each episode’s length can vary dramatically, with some as short as 20 minutes and others well over an hour. Those wanting to watch the whole thing will need to dedicate a significant amount of time to it. In turn, they may get one of the most in-depth looks at game development available online.
ThePsychOdysseyisn’t just for fans ofPsychonauts, of course. The development ofPsychonauts 2was anything but ordinary. Between the start ofPsychonauts 2’s development and its release,Double Fine went through selling the company to Microsoft, the pandemic, and multiple delays. It was an incredibly tumultuous development cycle, and thePsychOdysseyoffers insight into everything that happened along the way.
Psychonauts 2is available now on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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