I watched some Far Cry 6 gameplay footage recently, and it was exactly what I thought it would be: someone running around a jungle with a gun shooting people. It's fine. That's what Far Cry is. But I've done it so many times before—across hundreds of games, and not just Far Cry ones—that it barely raised a flutter of excitement. My brain sat cold and limp in my skull. But then I played Psychonauts 2, the new game from Double Fine, and within minutes of booting the thing up my synapses were blazing and my neural pathways were crackling with electricity. Ideas! Creativity! Colours! Jokes! I felt so alive.
This is what every second of playing Psychonauts 2 feels like. It's a game that is absolutely buzzing with energy, and there's so much imagination squeezed into every frame that it makes everything else I've played this year—even the really good games—seem incredibly dull in comparison. In it you play as Raz, a psychic who can dive into people's minds and explore the deepest, darkest recesses of their subconscious. It's in these surreal headspaces that Double Fine really starts showing off, bringing the contents of these eccentric characters' heads to life with some wonderfully vivid, colourful, imaginative art.
Related: Psychonauts 2 Review – Phenomenal Psychic Platforming
One level is made entirely of teeth, which is exactly as disgusting as it sounds. Raz climbs giant molars and bounces on squishy gums, and when I realised the 'grass' I was seeing everywhere was actually little wriggling nerve endings, I felt my own teeth twinge. There are spinning tunnels of teeth, 'dental doors' made of clenched teeth… everywhere you look, teeth, teeth, teeth. Psychonauts' thing is taking people's fears and anxieties and manifesting them as a physical world, and this is its most vivid (and horrible) expression of the concept yet.
Later you visit a visually striking, neon-lit mash-up of a casino and a hospital. Martini glasses filled with pills sit on top of prescription bottle tables, while skull-faced doctors gather around gurneys that have been turned into blackjack tables. There's just so much visual excitement everywhere you look. It's a real treat for the eyes, thanks in part to some beautiful Unreal-powered lighting and reflections—but mainly just because Double Fine has some of the most talented artists in the business. The level of creativity on display is absurd.
This continues outside of the mental world too. At one point early in the game Raz visits a sealife-themed casino, and Double Fine's artists really commit to the theme. It's all seashell-shaped beds and old-style telephones with lobsters for receivers, and the building itself is built around a colossal octopus with neon tentacles. I'm only about five hours into Psychonauts 2, but I've seen more imagination in that relatively short period of time than I have in some entire games. I can only imagine what wild, weird, wonderful stuff it has in store for me next.
I'm not saying every game needs to be a psychedelic voyage into the subconscious to be unique. I mean, it would certainly make Call of Duty more interesting. But after playing Psychonauts 2, going back to running around a jungle with a gun, or driving a realistic car along a grey track, is gonna be hard work. Now that I've tasted this absolute feast of creativity, and have been reminded of the heights a great art team and a studio with a strong vision can reach, I feel like anything else will be a step back.
Next: Interview: Double Fine On Psychonauts 2, Accessibility, And Depicting Mental Health
