Double Fine to crowdfund Psychonauts sequel through Fig
This week at The Game Awards 2015, Double Fine Productions Inc revealed that it is finally working on the long awaited sequel to the cult classic platformer Pyschonauts, which was originally released in 2005 for Xbox, PlayStation 2, and PC.
When it was originally released, Psychonauts received almost universal critical acclaim, but it sold relatively few copies. However, in 2011, Double Fine reacquired the rights to Psychonauts and released the game on Steam and other online PC game platforms.
“In the last five years, it’s actually sold double what it did in the first five years,” Double Fine head and Psychonauts creator Tim Schafer said in a video. “So instead of fading away, the power of Psychonauts has only grown.”
Double Fine aired a teaser trailer for Psychonauts 2 during The Game Awards, and the studio announced that the new title would be partially funded through Fig, a new crowdfunding platform that allows backers to become actual investors in the campaigns, complete with real monetary rewards from successful projects.
“What happened to 3D action-adventure platformers with stylized graphics and color and humor?”
This would not be Double Fine’s first crowdfunded game. The studio previously funded an adventure game called Broken Age, which raised over $3.3 million on Kickstarter. Schafer said that the success of the Broken Age campaign is what convinced him to revisit crowdfunding for Psychonauts 2.
“The campaign for Broken Age took the world by surprise,” he said. “It proved, among other things, that the world still wants adventure games. Which is great, but what about another kind of game?”
“What happened to 3D action-adventure platformers with stylized graphics and color and humor? Where are those games? That’s something that I really wish there were more of, and I think other people out there do too.”
So far, the sequel to Psychonauts has already raised over $1 million of its $3.3 million target through Fig with 34 days remaining in the campaign.
You can watch the Psychonauts 2 crowdfunding campaign video below (along with a brief cameo from Valve Corp head Gabe Newell):
Image courtesy of Double Fine Productions Inc
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