According to Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg in an interview, Psychonauts 2 Double Fine wouldn’t have been the same without the support from Microsoft. There is talk of financial support, but also in development.
Greenberg: “When we contacted Double Fine, they had a limited budget for Psychonauts 2 and would launch the game with what they had, because they couldn’t ask for more money on Kickstarter. (actually Psychonauts 2 was funded on FIG, another crowd funding platform Ed).
After the acquisition, we injected a lot of money into the studio, as well as providing a whole team of developers to support the game, while also giving new animators, new technologies and much more.“
Greenberg then added that Microsoft specifically asked Double Fine to launch the game only when it was ready, thus avoiding criticism from a technical point of view.
In short, without entering the Xbox Game Studios of Double Fine, Psychonauts 2 was in danger of being very different from what it was, in more of a much poorer sense. Instead it turned out to be one of the best titles of 2021, as certified by our review and many others.
