There are five parts to
every Psychonauts
level, Schafer explains.
“I broke it down:
each one has a host,
the person whose
brain you’re going
into. They have a
condition, like they’re
paranoid or obsessive
or something like
that. They have a
visual aesthetic, and
then they have a
setting. Then there’s
a gameplay twist,
like relative gravity
or how The Milkman
Conspiracy level was
all twisted and stuff
like that. We made
cards for all five
things and then
picked out the
combinations that
were most promising
to us and developed
them from there”
PSYCH
RE-EVAL-
UATION
While a sequel represents
an opportunity for Schafer
to realise the world
concepts he’s been
scribbling down for years,
it’s also a chance for him to
delve deeper into the past
of the Psychonauts
organisation itself. “We get
a little into the early days,
where it was more a ’60s
exploration-of the-mind
[collective] rather than
a spy organisation.” The
game will also dig into
Raz’s family backstory,
which was only hinted at in
the original. “I’ve always
wanted to develop it more
and had ideas of where
they were going to end up.
They’ve changed a little bit
over time, but the core
setup is really paying off
something that I wrote in
a notebook 15 years ago.”