Announced to celebration at last night's Video Game Awards show, Psychonauts 2 has already amassed over $1M in less than a day from more than 7,500 backers on its official crowdfunding campaign. As opposed to using the more usual routes of Kickstarter or Indiegogo, Double Fine Productions is looking for $3.3M through FIG.co.
Most backers have contributed either $33 or $39 for Basic Braining, which includes digital downloads for Psychonauts 1 & 2. At the time of this writing, two backers have already given $10,000 for "A Trip to Whispering Rock" which includes a long list of goodies plus a camping trip for one person and a friend to the Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp, which I suppose will be an awesome Psychonauts-themed adventure with the Double Fine team.
Psychonauts 2 will continue the story of young psychic Razputin who become an international psychic secret agent at Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp. In this immediate sequel, Raz visits Psychonauts Headquarters, who needs his PSI-abilities to unravel the minds of "a host of new characters who need his help to combat their inner demons."
Tim Schafer will of course be leading the way along with artists Scott Campbell, Peter Chan, and Nathan Stapley, as well as composer Peter McConnell. The voice actor for Razputin, Richard Horvitz, and the voice actress for his friend Lili, Nicki Rapp, will return too.
Double Fine admits that $3.3M, though quite substantial in the crowdfunding department, won't be enough to cover the entire budget, especially with the original game having a budget of $10-13.5M all the way back in 2005. They plan on investing a part of their own money, plus some from an external partner.
Psychonauts 2 is projected to release in 2018 (I can't even think that far out yet!) for PC, Mac, PS4, Xbox One (we assume), and Linux. 2 Player Productions, which filmed Double Fine Adventure, will be documenting the development of Psychonauts 2 as well. We'll be monitoring this campaign through its remaining 34 days.
