Psychonauts 2

Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, Windows (Steam Deck: YMMV)
Buy it from: Humble Bundle
Current goal: Experience one of my favorite games again

Psychonauts 2 is a pretty great game. When it was released in 2021, it became everything to me, and that’s coming from someone who played the original and thought it was just a fine, if ambitious, game. My love for the sequel hasa lot to do with the heart and sincerity with which it talks about people who are a little chipped and broken in ways intimately familiar to me. It was the hug I needed at an otherwise difficult point in my life. I bawled over Psychonauts 2 numerous times throughout my playthrough, and it’s been tough to revisit it outside of that window.

However, about a year and half after it was released, a documentary on the making of Psychonauts 2 was released, and that somehow gave me an even deeper appreciation for it and the team behind it. It is, by my estimation, the single greatest look at the development of a video game, and should be a foundational piece that we refer back to whenever we want to talk about the intricacies of making one. It is both ugly and utterly magical, and thinking about the work that went into Psychonauts 2 always makes me want to pick it back up. Recently, the makers of the documentary released a feature-length epilogue of sorts that sent me down the rabbit hole again, and I just finished rewatching the doc. Considering the game’s third anniversary is coming up later this month, now’s as good a time as any to dive back in and let Psychonauts 2 utterly ruin me one more time. —Moises Taveras