Of the studios Microsoft acquired in their recent flurry of purchases, Double Fine Productions was a name that stood out. As developers of games such as Psychonauts and Broken Age and led by industry vet Tim Schafer, they certainly have a solid reputation, and things look exciting for them in the coming months and years ahead as well. At the time they were acquired by Microsoft, Double Fine were already working on Psychonauts 2 – as they still are – but it seems the acquisition actually helped the upcoming platformer’s development.
Similar to the situation with inXile and Wasteland 3, Double Fine Productions were able to leverage the bigger budget they now had at their disposal thanks to Microsoft to flesh out Psychonauts 2 even further, studio head Tim Schafer told GamesIndustry. He explained that boss fights, for instance, had previously been cut out from the game due to budget constraints, but following their acquisition by Microsoft, they were able to put them back in.
“With Psychonauts 2, we could see the end of our budget coming up, and so we had cut a lot of stuff,” Schafer explained. “We had cut our boss fights. Now we are able to put those back in, and we’re like ‘we think people would have noticed if we didn’t have those boss fights’. Being able to complete the game in the way that it was meant to be was very important.
“I’m looking forward to doing things for the right reasons. When you only have a certain amount of time and money, you might jump into a part of the game that you’re not ready to jump into, or start working on art before you’re ready with design. But now I look forward to this era where we are doing everything for what is right for the game.”
Psychonauts 2 is due out for Xbox One, PS4, and PC some time later this year, but doesn’t currently have a solid release date.