Psychonauts remaster “would be a lot of work,” says Tim Schafer

A Psychonauts remaster “would be a lot of work” due to the manner in which it was originally developed, Tim Schafer has told Stevivor.

“You can play the original on [Xbox] Game Pass right now and you never know, someday — now that we have more resources — we could remaster that someday,” Schafer told Stevivor as part of a larger conversation on Psychonauts 2.

“But it would be a lot of work because a lot of that was not archived properly,” he continued. “A lot of the scenes would have to be remade from scratch, and so, maybe someday.

“I think the original game really holds up in a lot of ways, especially the stuff that was rendered in-engine ’cause a lot of its style comes from the shape language of the characters and stuff, and that still is kind of evergreen.”

Those in love with the original game need not break the bank to play it — as Schafer said, Psychonauts was added to Xbox Game Pass for both console and PC in May 2021. The Xbox version is listed as Enhanced for Xbox One X, with all the upgraded bells and whistles you’d expect. That said though, nothing can quite fix its old-school camera.

“Yeah, definitely,” Schafer admitted when we mentioned that particular item.”Our new camera programmer, Aaron Jacobs, has been masterfully writing really, really elegant [camera work] — so you don’t even notice the things that it’s doing sometimes [in Psychonauts 2].

“That’s definitely one of the areas — along with combat – the two things we wanted to make better: combat and camera.”

Psychonauts 2 heads to Windows PC, Mac, Linux, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PS4 and PS5 on 25 August 2021, part of the Xbox Game Pass program.

Psychonauts 2 25 August 2021 PC PS4 Xbox One Xbox Series S & X   Buy on Windows PC via Steam Buy on the PlayStation Store Buy on the Xbox Store