Double Fine says Psychonauts 2 is "playable" and finally launching this year

Double Fine has confirmed Psychonauts 2, the long-awaited sequel to its 2005 cult-classic platform adventure, will finally, after a multitude of delays, be launching this year.

Psychonauts 2 was officially announced in 2015, with Double Fine successfully managing to crowdfund $3,829,024 USD to contribute toward development costs that same year. Despite initially planning to launch the game in 2018, the developer announced a one-year delay in 2017 based on its current progress.

However, in July 2019, Double Fine delayed Psychonauts 2's release once more, this time to 2020, and then again the following year, to 2021. With three delays now under its belt, fans and backers would be forgiven for anticipating yet another slip, but Double Fine has now offered assurances, via its Twitter feed, that Psychonauts 2 is real, playable, and coming "this year".

"Yes I've been mentioning that here and elsewhere for a while," read the tweet, "but no I can't tell you when because someone from THE COMPANY would arrange for a mysterious 'cactus accident' to happen to me..."

Psychonauts 2, if you've managed to lose track of things since its announcement, follows the conclusion of 2017 VR spin-off Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin - in which protagonist Raz and friends attempt to rescue head Psychonaut Truman Zanotto - and sees the team returning to Psychonaut HQ, only to discover something is amiss.

It's set to follow a similar template to its highly regarded predecessor, meaning you should expect more Psi-Powered third-person action-platforming as Raz once again enters the heads of various characters and explores their mental worlds in order to save the day.

We'll finally know how successful Double Fine's long toil on Psychonauts 2 has been in capturing the magic of the original when it comes to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Game Pass, and PC later this year.