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Double Fine is making several 'weird' games that 'could never get accepted by a publisher,' though some developers leave the door open for Psychonauts 3
Double Fine Productions is currently not making Psychonauts 3 or any other similarly massive projects, instead focusing on smaller games, including a new project by Headlander director Lee Petty and a secretive project from studio founder Tim Schafer.
Double Fine Productions recently dropped an epilogue episode to its sweeping 33-part documentary series PsychoOdyssey, which broke down the turbulent development of Psychonauts 2, and it left some hints about the studio's next few projects.
To shoo out the elephant in the room, Double Fine is currently not making Psychonauts 3 or any other similarly massive projects since the studio is playing around with comparatively smaller stuff. Some developers didn't totally close the door on a potential threequel, however. Senior VFX artist Tazio Coolidge said he wouldn't mind returning to the trippy world "because we have all these lessons learned," though doing so "would be f***ing hard, dude." Another developer said, "Maybe we'll make a third someday," while one just groaned "No..."
That's because anyone that's watched the full docuseries knows that the development of Psychonauts 2 was a pretty tough endeavour for Double Fine folks, as most big video games are, as some staff talk about feeling burned out in the episode above. But it sounds like the studio is returning to their previous development pipeline and splitting into smaller teams, which previously gave us leaner gems like Costume Quest and mutant roguelike Rad.
"In the two years since we shipped Psychonauts 2, we've launched some more games. All new games. Some new project leaders," studio founder and Psychonauts director Tim Schafer said. "Our new games are a test of this new thing of: What game could we never get accepted by a publisher?" Schafer muses that Double Fine's position in Microsoft's roster is the team that "can make the strangest games on Game Pass, the most surprising, the most creative, the most unique games."
Schafer then hints that Lee Petty, the director behind dazzling Metroidvania Headlander, is making something "weird" and "unexpected." After leading cult classics such as Brutal Legend, Psychonauts, Grim Fandango, and much more, Schafer himself is also hammering away at a secretive project that's even under wraps from most of the studio's other employees, too.
Whatever comes out of Double Fine next should be, as all their output usually is, totally original.