Tim Schafer says that he is ready to make Psychonauts 2, but needs to find a publisher willing to back the project.
If there was ever a game that exemplified the label “cult classic,” it’s Psychonauts. Despite receiving almost universal critical acclaim for its humor, characters and imagination, it failed to find an audience beyond a small group of hardcore supporters. But speaking to PSM3 magazine, Schafer said that a sequel would be a “big hit,” thanks to the belated buzz around the original game.
Schafer said that he would be happy to make a sequel to Psychonauts, but needed the backing of a publisher to do it. Schafer thought that the Psychonauts brand had a lot of recognition among gamers, thanks to low prices on digital distribution platforms, word of mouth, and – of all things – piracy getting the game in front of a lot of people, which gave the Psychonauts name more pull than its sales alone might indicate.
As much as people – myself included – love Psychonauts, I think that getting a sequel off the ground is going to be tricky for Double Fine. While you could argue that there were extenuating circumstances in both cases, neither Psychonauts nor Brutal Legend sold particularly well, and that’s not something that a publisher is going to ignore. Schafer is likely right that Psychonauts has a lot of brand recognition, but that’s only going to be one part of the equation when publishers are weighing the pro and cons.
Source: CVG
