It could be argued that the original 2005 Psychonauts is a game about trauma and mental illness, so the revelation that Psychonauts 2 will contain a powerful accessibility feature fits right in with the series' design sensibilities. According to a series of tweets shared by studio Double Fine, Psychonauts 2 will be offering players an invincibility toggle to make sure that everyone can clear the game.
This announcement was made in a response to a tweet from Xbox's official Twitter account claiming that beating a game on the lowest difficulty still counts as beating the game. Double Fine's reply, made July 9th, was that beating Psychonauts 2 with the invincibility toggle on was also still beating the game. Gamers who, for one reason or another, may run into difficulty with action-platformers might find this to be good news, especially if they had concerns about clearing some of the zany levels Psychonauts 2 has already shown off.
Psychonauts has always been about adaptability and learning to cope with personal demons, and it seems that Double Fine intends to walk the walk as well as talk the talk. After the initial tweet, Double Fine continued the thread with a humorous take on the way some gamers claim that beating a game doesn't count. Double Fine has also dedicated itself to developing Psychonauts 2 without crunch, which may factor into why the game has had such a long development period. However, this decision to buck the trend of placing unhealthy demands on video game developers appears to come from the same place as the invincibility toggle announcement.
In the thread's third and final tweet, Double Fine drops all jokes and states seriously that all people should be able to enjoy all games, regardless of age or possible accessibility needs. It goes on to say that this is both an important and ongoing process in the video game industry as well as a challenge that developers need to meet. At the end of the day, Double Fine reports that it wants fans to have fun, laugh, and experience a story that affects them, on whatever terms they want, a statement fits with Double Fine's apparent approach to game development. The studio also brought in a psychologist to help accurately depict mental health and illness in Psychonauts 2.
Fans of Psychonauts 2 appear to have taken the announcement with mixed feelings. Many Twitter users replied with confusion or sarcasm, asking if Double Fine expects even roguelikes to feature invincibility features. Others accepted the developers' statement without any issues, even questioning if this kind of gatekeeping has ever been an issue. Another segment of users agree that gatekeeping is a problem, but argue that some players enjoy beating games on the highest difficulty sections, meaning that fun is often subjective. Whatever the case, it appears that fans are still looking forward to playing around with Psychonauts 2's new Psi-Powers.
Psychonauts 2 will launch on August 25 for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.