Tim Schafer has wrapped up work on Psychonauts 2's script
"Now I should light a single cigarette and get my legs hobbled by Kathy Bates".
Say what you will about Double Fine's back-catalogue, but you can almost always expect plenty of witty rapport from the studio's characters. This week, Psychonauts 2 closed the book on its own script, as Tim Schafer announced that he'd penned his last line of dialogue for the brain-invading sequel.
Taking a short moment to celebrate on Twitter last night, Schafer also revealed that Double Fine are holding their final voice-over recording sessions this week—adding the harrowing aside that the team's been working with some of these actors since 2002. Feel old yet?
And now this week we're having our final recording session for all characters, some of whom we first recorded for P1 in 2002! At the end of our final session with the amazing @itsuhrapp, the engineer pointed out that the last line we recorded for Lili was this. I almost lost it. pic.twitter.com/HeSN8F3lGwJanuary 13, 2021
Despite being delayed out of planned releases in 2019 and 2020, Double Fine is pretty confident that 2021 will be the year it gets Psychonauts out the door. They might even pull it off, too. A developer update over the winter break explained that all the levels are in the game, with just some last-minute additions and a few coats of polish left before lift-off.
Those final touches reportedly include things like credits and cutscenes, but also a post-game epilogue that'll let you wander around the game's world freely. Last month's update also stressed that the game was built with zero crunch—a pointed change from the first game which, according to Schafer, was build under "one of the worst crunch modes we've ever done".
And hey, once Psychonauts 2 is done and dusted, maybe Tim can ring up Duncan Jones about getting that Full Throttle fan-script greenlit. How about it, guys?
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20 years ago, Nat played Jet Set Radio Future for the first time, and she's not stopped thinking about games since. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, she comes from three years of freelance reporting at Rock Paper Shotgun, Waypoint, VG247 and more. Embedded in the European indie scene and a part-time game developer herself, Nat is always looking for a new curiosity to scream about—whether it's the next best indie darling, or simply someone modding a Scotmid into Black Mesa. She also unofficially appears in Apex Legends under the pseudonym Horizon.