Double Fine's first major release as part of Xbox Games Studios is coming soon, with Psychonauts 2 set to launch on August 25. Psychonauts 2 is also in a unique position, however. It starts as a crowd-funded project at Double Fine through the Fig platform, and as such made promises to deliver Psychonauts 2 across not just PC and Xbox, but PlayStation 4 as well. Now a controversy is set to ignite, as early performance detail reveals some performance favoritism, particularly between the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
To be clear, Double Fine's promised support of both PS4 and Xbox One for Psychonauts 2 is being dealt with evenhandedly. Both platforms will run the game at 1080p and 30fps. Its next-gen platform support where the differences lie. In fact, the differences are so glaring that even Psychonauts 2 on the Xbox Series S will have better performance than on the PS5. There's a clear reason for that, at the very least. That's because Psychonauts 2 isn't technically being released on the PS5.
Psychonauts 2 on the PS5 will run at 1440p with 60fps. That's an impressive upgrade over the base PS4 performance considering Psychonauts 2 will only be available on PS5 via backward compatibility with the PS4 version of the game. To repeat, there is no official PS5 version of Psychonauts 2. That also means that PS5 will not support either HDR or VRR for Psychonauts 2.
Meanwhile, the support for both the Xbox Series S and the Xbox Series X is genuinely impressive. The Xbox Series S runs at an incredible 2880x1620 resolution at 60fps, a resolution bump over PS5. It also supports a 120fps mode at 1080p, a rarity on the platform. The Xbox Series X supports 4K resolution at 60fps, with an alternate mode of 1440p at 120Hz. Both platforms support both HDR and VRR, making Xbox consoles easily the best console platforms for Psychonauts 2.
While PlayStation fans are going to be disappointed in their options for Psychonauts 2, this isn't necessarily a surprising direction for Xbox. Its priority is to put out exclusives on Xbox platforms. Since Psychonauts 2 had made promises regarding supported platforms already, Xbox had to ensure PS4 was supported. But anything more than that almost certainly doesn't fit into Xbox's goals.
The good news is that Psychonauts 2 will still be playable on both PS4 and PS5. That's more than what will happen for virtually all of Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda's upcoming games. Considering how excited Double Fine is about what it's done with Psychonauts 2, that may be a blessing.
Psychonauts 2 releases August 25 on PC, PS4, PS5 (via backward compatibility), Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.