Art director Lisette Titre-
Montgomery: “We’re
always thinking about
how to take the visuals
forward. But there’s
a strong history of why
the Psychonauts look
the way they do, and it’s
up to us to adapt that”
THE SONG
REMAINS
THE SAME
Given the theme of
getting the band back
together, it’s only fitting
that several of the
people who worked on
Psychonauts are back
for the sequel, not
least composer Peter
McConnell. “The person
who modelled Raz,
David Russell, modelled
him for the first game,
and several of the
environmental artists are
the same,” Schafer adds.
Despite the shift to a new
aesthetic for this stage,
the visual language is
consistent with the first,
too. “We’ve kept the
same shapes, whereas
the materials and the
close-up details have
really modernised,”
Schafer says. “So it’s
more like what
Psychonauts looks like in
your head. Like, I’ll look
at an old screenshot and
go, ‘Oh my god’, texture
resolution is much higher
in my mind. But now we
can show detailed fabric
and fibres, and really
differentiate skin from
cloth in a way we couldn’t
in the first game.”