While Chernobylite seems to be a far cry from being a full-fledged S.T.A.L.K.E.R tribute act, The Farm 51 shooter isn’t exactly a rehashing of radioactive debris. Though the two games have many common visual elements, such as mutants, oddities, harsh weather, and a particular nuclear power facility that had some drama in April 1986, fundamentally they are quite distinct from one another.

Chernobylite is more similar to Metal Gear Solid 5 than Stalker, who follows the now-familiar structure of an open-word shooter. The game’s semi-open world is divided into many areas that you may return to again, with adversaries and surroundings changing throughout. An large base-building metagame unites the whole experience. It’s a unique structure that is both the most intriguing aspect of Chernobylite and the reason for all of its shortcomings.

You take on the role of scientist Igor Khymynyuk, who worked at the Chernobyl NPP on April 26, 1986, when the accident occurred. Tatyana, Igor’s wife, who disappeared the night of the disaster, was also there. Thirty years later, Igor starts seeing visions of Tatyana in and around the power plant, so he goes back to the Exclusion Zone to look for her.

It’s unclear exactly why Igor waited thirty years to find out whether his wife had passed away, but it wasn’t a good idea for him to return to the Zone at that point. The NAR private military firm has taken over the territory around Chernobyl. Its exact function is unknown, but it has to do with the discovery of Chernobylite—a new, mineral-like substance—in the Zone.

Chernobylite begins with a sleek, Call of Duty-style night attack on the power plant itself, after a short, dreamy prologue that shows Igor arriving in the Zone via train. While the majority of the NPP hovers above you like a sleeping leviathan, you discover how to slip by NAR patrols with the help of your soldier-of-fortune friend Olivier. An intriguing blend of fiction and reality about Chernobyl may be found in this first quest. You start to experience flashbacks to that fateful night as your stalker-like characters prowl around the painstakingly recreated reactor halls and corridors of the power plant. These flashbacks include scenes from the 2019 HBO series, where technicians argue incoherently and denial in the control room and manually turn valves in the flooded vaults beneath the exposed reactor.

Following the raid, when Igor uses a piece of Chernobylite to power a portable portal he made, he and his Olivier reassemble in a warehouse on the edge of the Zone. Your headquarters is this warehouse, where you build machinery to make new tools and gradually amass money in order to carry out a second, more ambitious “Heist” on the power plant.

On a mission of your choosing, you set out into one of the zone’s five zones on each new “Day” in the game. This could be a more customized mission that advances the plot, either by assisting one of the many companions that progressively populate your base as the game goes on or by gathering resources meant for building your base or feeding your companions. Alternatively, it could be a simple mission to gather resources meant for feeding your companions or expanding your base.

Missions function similarly in both scenarios: you sneak about the Zone’s tangled flora and crumbling structures, use your environment analyzer to steer clear of radiation pools and identify items that may be collected. Every now and then you may encounter a mutant or a NAR patrol, with whom you can either sneak around or fight. After completing your primary goal, you have two options: use Igor’s portal gadget to exfiltrate, or carry on exploring.

Early on in Chernobylite’s exploration, things become exciting and tense. The Zone is terrifying and beautiful at the same time, and the game makes a remarkable amount of variation out of every area. The massive Duga Radar Array, the source of so much Chernobyl legend, overlooks the combined rural and urban environment of the Moscow Eye, while Red Forest is a large stretch of woods intermingled with soviet infrastructure like rail-tracks and secret bunkers. My favorite part of the game is definitely Pripyat Port, which is home to the debris-filled Pripyat Hospital, its corridors and chambers softly resonating with the sounds of everyday life before the catastrophe.

Over time, these five zones also change. Radiation pools become bigger. Soldiers from the NAR come more prepared. Severe “Chenobylite storms” intensify in ferocity. The number and variety of mutants increase, and new varieties—like the terrifying, portal-hopping Shadow—are introduced. You incur the wrath of the “Black Stalker,” a monster that dynamically appears in the later part of the game and appears out of nowhere to fire you with a large green laser rifle and devour all of your ammunition.

The emergent play of Chernobylites comes from these aspects. With a Chernobylite storm raging above, I was sneaking up on an objective at the Moscow Eye and ready to take out one of the guards when the Black Stalker sprang out of a portal next to me. The alarm went off, and chaos broke out. I legged it into a neighboring wooded area, where the ground was dotted with gunshot holes and lightning strikes filled with Chernobylite.

Chernobylite’s maps often lack the dynamic element provided by S.T.A.L.K.E.R’s A-Life system. However, it makes up for it with other clever minor mechanisms that improve roleplaying. Killing adversaries, for instance, depletes your mentality and adds a second health bar. Vodka helps to recover psyche, thus after a fight, you usually wash the trauma away with lengthy draughts of Ukrainian moonshine.

Chernobylite is a fantastic place, but you have to be patient to locate it. Because the maps are smaller than they seem at first, you’ll find yourself spending a lot of time in the same locations. Although the changing Zone is intended to lessen this, the adjustments are made too gradually. As a consequence, the mid-game objectives might be monotonous and repetitive as you search around the same few spots for materials and then dodge a few minor NAR patrols to finish the assignment.

Although, as is the case in-mission, systemic complexity doesn’t always pay off as one would think, base management makes an effort to make up for this. You must balance a number of base requirements, including electricity, comfort, and radiation protection, in order to construct and operate your base successfully. Constructing a new piece of equipment, such a weapons making table, will use more energy and be less comfortable, which may negatively impact how your partner feels about you.

The problem is that base construction has no tangible impact other than bestowing new equipment. Even while adding TVs, beds, or chairs would make things more comfortable, you never see your friends using them. They have no discernible effect on how the base feels or works. Character connections have a similar problem. Your companions’ perception of you is influenced by your decisions and approach to base administration throughout the tale, but this shift in perspective isn’t reflected in the way they behave on the base or in casual conversations. As a consequence, base-building is both mechanically demanding and rather staid.

Having said that, the tale is intriguing despite being complicated. The characters are drawn with enjoyment, and the narrative is generally well-written. Mikhail, a loose-cannon Stalker who tells fantastic stories and curses like a sailor, and Tarkan, an eccentric resident of the Zone who is fascinated with rodents and calls you “mousey” and feels he’s embroiled in an epic battle with an entity he calls the “Rat King,” are among your motley company.

The missions itself contain a variety of concepts and objectives, and even if you could become too used to the surroundings, the actions you make while in a mission can have some really amazing outcomes. You may opt to change the Moscow Eye’s configuration by detonating the Duga Radar Array during an early mission. Later on, you had to complete an extra goal where you had to escape the NAR’s jail after deciding not to destroy certain papers in one operation that led to Igor getting imprisoned by NAR many missions later.

Small discoveries like this were what kept me interested in Chernobylite even when my attention strayed. After going through a few survivalist milk runs, I would be tempted to give up, but either I would have to rescue a friend from a building that was leaking hallucinogenic gasses, or I would have to battle the NAR for a long time because I had accidentally walked into a radiation hotspot while attempting to sneak past. The game isn’t exactly exhilarating, and the framework serves as more of a barrier than an aid. Chernobylite, however, clicks like a dosimeter close to the elephant’s foot when everything comes together.

Though thoughtful and ambitious, Amplitude’s major move for the historical grand strategy crown lacks a little something special.
Large-scale 4X strategy games have always included ideology. It is present in a very explicit manner, such as when you adjust the “authoritarianism” setting on the ideology screen of your empire. Additionally, there is ideology—that is, the developer’s ideology—behind all of that, which they may not even be aware of—that explains why they chose an authoritarianism dial in the first place and why it functions the way it does.

I’ll move on because if you use the word “ideology” too often, you’ll sound like Slavoj Žižek stuck on repeat. The idea is that in Humankind, the new historical grand strategy in the style of Civilization from Endless Legend and Space creator Amplitude, capital-I ideology is deftly handled in a manner akin to a consequential sliding scale system, while the developer’s little-I ideology is consistently felt. I’m informed that Amplitude has been wanting to create a game similar to this since its founding, and that their main motivation is to do things the correct way, whatever that may be. I adore it because of it, regardless of the result.

Aside from that, Humankind plays like the most thoughtful, philosophical, and historically true (if not exactly correct) game of its type. It sounds as if a bunch of very clever individuals got down in a room and carefully considered how to do things in the most realistic manner imaginable. This makes it, in many respects, the 4X game I’ve always desired—one whose systems function mostly in line with those of the real world and whose history is structurally linked with that of real humanity. The only issue is that after playing it, I’m not sure whether I still want it.

The current 4X, civilization, is by far the most similar to humanity in history. You can play Humankind right away if you’ve played Civ, particularly a contemporary one. In order to win the game, you must compete against other human or artificial intelligence (AI) civilizations by building cities on hexes, exploiting the earth’s natural resources, moving up the scientific tech tree, spreading your influence over religion or culture, creating and discovering wonders, and balancing the many socioeconomic pressures on society.

In reality, Humankind resembles a successor to Civilization in that it adheres to the same model, including the well-known rule of thirds: around two thirds of Humankind is unchanged Civil, but the remaining third, or two major aspects, have been reimagined. The victory condition is the first of those significant distinctions.

In the game Humankind, there’s only one way to win: renown. Fame is a numerical score that may be obtained by accomplishing several in-game objectives. At the conclusion of the game, the player with the highest score wins. The game ends for a variety of reasons: reaching a certain number of turns, defeating or subjugating every other player, finishing the tech tree, starting a Mars colony, gathering all the stars of the final era (more on that in a moment), or, somewhat surprisingly, making the entire planet uninhabitable for human habitation.

This is excellent, as is the case with most everything Humankind does. Amplitude’s first goal is to eliminate the “frustration” that arises when someone else wins against you by using a different win condition, such a cultural triumph, just as you were about to achieve your own scientific success. Second, it all boils down to wanting to retain as much historical accuracy as you can. The argument argues that even if many of the most well-known civilizations are no longer in existence, they are nonetheless well-known and, if not exactly respected, for the things they accomplished. This is how things operate in human history. If at the conclusion of the game no one else can equal the score you managed to obtain, you may still win the game even after you are eliminated.

A system called “era stars” is in place to support this, which are essentially gold stars that you may acquire, much like a good little student. If you’d want, you can choose to be a student of absolutely brutalizing your foes in battle or using force to extend your area. With the exception of the very first era, each of the seven categories has three stars available for earning era stars, for a total of up to 21 stars per era (plus additional stars for accomplishing specific one-off tasks, such as being the first to discover a natural wonder or connect two cities by rail, and a unique “competitive spirit” star that establishes a sort of natural catch-up system to maintain balance). There is a significant and extremely ingenious catch to the basic rule that the more period stars you gather, the higher your score will be. Each era star awards you with a bundle of fame points.

Stars in the same category as your existing culture are more famous, and here is where Humanity’s second major break from civilization, along with most other great plans, come in. Every player begins the game with the same blank slate—a solitary nomadic tribe that gradually expands as you explore—instead of selecting a specific civilization or leader like Genghis Khan or the Greeks. As you go into a new era, you choose your culture for that period. A specialty is added to the standard items such a special unit, passive ability, and building. Since the Mongols are known for their battle prowess, obtaining a combat era star—which is awarded for eliminating a certain number of enemy units—gets you more notoriety than other period stars, such as scientific ones.

Once again, it all boils down to authenticity—the idea of conducting humankind’s affairs in a manner that accurately depicts reality. In general, humans originated as tiny nomadic tribes rather than as separate civilizations like the Romans and the British Empire. Over time, people evolved, creating societies and cultures to fit the many conditions of existence. So it goes in Humankind, although quite cleverly on paper. Because you were rightly settled by some hostile independent tribes or an aggressive competitor culture, you may first prioritize your fighting skills. As a result, your first culture of choice may be combat-oriented, rewarding you with benefits and increased notoriety for successfully waging war. There are subtle differences even within that specialization; for example, some militarist cultures prioritize defensive above offensive capabilities and vice versa.

Then, in order to play at a higher level, you must consider how your choice of culture influences your notoriety more deliberately than by just responding to external events. If you were doing well militarily, for example, you could have been able to quickly produce soldiers by setting up a metropolis with several industrial districts, or makers quarters as they are called in humankind. Defeating nearby opponents prepares you rather well for a construction age, thus it might be wise to choose a “builder” culture next, which rewards you for doing nothing more than creating additional districts. And you may even plan ahead further, selecting a science specialist for the next builder period and profiting once more after constructing a ton of scientific districts (research quarters) to earn builder stars during your builder era.

A few astute trade-offs are also included in the scheme. Cultures are first-come, first-served, so you’re compelled to move quickly to the next one before you miss out. All you need is seven of the 21 available period stars in order to proceed to the next era. The longer you stay in one period, the more stars—and therefore, notoriety—you may accumulate overall. However, if you move on, you are unable to earn any stars from the preceding era. Another choice is to “transcend” your culture to the next one, which entails maintaining everything the same and losing out on any new structures or troops but gains you a 10% boost to all the notoriety you earn.

Thus, you have a more realistic beginning to the game, a more realistic system of civilizations for progressing through it, and a more realistic means of really winning—victory as fame or memorability. In principle, when you put it all together, you have a really intelligent system. On paper.

In reality, there are a few issues. Variety is one of the declared objectives of allowing you to travel across civilizations as you advance, in addition to realism. Since there are literally millions of options, it is theoretically impossible for two games to ever be identical. However, switching between specializations as needed causes the game to become somewhat hazy and rush you towards that soupy late-game state common to similar grand strategies, where you may have one or two strong specializations but actually need to be doing a little bit of everything to make them function, including money to support your troops, science to keep them advanced, industry to build them quickly, food to feed the populace, and so forth. Because of this, the everything-bagel state that characterizes the endgame in grand strategy games is by far their worst feature. Anything that makes the game seem more like that, rather than less, is problematic.

More than that, however, role-playing is a sometimes overlooked aspect of what really distinguishes a genuinely outstanding strategy game of any sort, particularly the larger ones. The whole purpose of the genre, whether it be Civ, Stellaris, or anything else, is really this: you play these games to pretend to be a shrewd technocrat, an omnipotent demi-god, or a blustering commander-in-chief, and it’s difficult to do when you’re only a technocrat for a few turns before the next era arrives. Before you can even take off the builder’s hardhat, you’ll be pulling a lab coat over one arm of your military fatigues and racing between roles like a one-man show. It is true that you have the option to remain a single culture throughout by using the transcendence option, but doing so will require a great deal of skill, particularly when facing militaristic opponents who have special fighter jets flying overhead or unique tanks rolling in. The idea is that you will need to adapt and change as you go.

The criteria for winning also influence that. I choose Genghis Khan, the Imperial Space Slugs, or any other character because I want to play for a military victory right away, making minor adjustments as needed. This kind of goal-clarity is what makes a game stand out from the others. In a sense, the objective is the astonishment that an opponent has beyond me to the position. When a good grand plan comes to a conclusion, things become tight. You’re trying to stave off an enemy army while rushing to build a spaceport or buying up artifacts to snatch some last-minute tourists away from someone who’s about to win a cultural war. Although you can theoretically use a variety of inter-player tools, such as influence-bombing a territory to make it yours or simply advancing through a city with your army to reduce the population of someone vying for an agrarian star, that’s less sophisticated than you’d hope for a game of this kind. The systems are largely quite insular due to the undymanic nature of era stars, which means once you get one you can’t lose it.

The historical 4X has a duty to arouse terror and amazement. Humanity often gives the impression that gratitude alone is sufficient.

Lastly, there’s a faint feeling that humanity is a little bit lifeless. The game itself is exquisitely designed, with a simple and mostly clear user interface (though there are a few awkward copy passages and the tutorial only explains that converting outposts can be used to build a city, which seems like a mistake but is understandable in the early stages of a launch). When compared to its contemporaries, there seems to be a noticeable lack of flare or celebration. There’s no fanfare at all when new technologies are unlocked; the music is fine but a touch unspectacular—no Baba Yetu or Creation and Beyond—and the narration is decent, if a little sardonic. These are games about mankind as a whole, about the marvels, the tragedies, the hopes, and the nightmares of human potential. Above all other games, the historical 4X has a responsibility to evoke dread and awe, and humanity often seems to believe that simple admiration is sufficient.

It’s quite unfortunate, considering how fantastic the product is overall. The little-I ideology system is a focal point; it is a set of left- and right-leaning axes that your civilization is pushed between based on the civics you practice and the choices you make about emergent narrative events. The more you go toward the extremes of an ideology, such as authoritarianism, the bigger the associated benefit and the worse the blow to your general stability, or the likelihood of uprisings in your cities. It’s logical! It makes a lot of sense, as so much of this game does, sifting between technical subtlety and astute social commentary—the epitome of the strategy game. Although religion is fairly basic and somewhat disconnected from other mechanics—you lose access to new tenets if you convert, and you may add new ones when you reach a new follower threshold—it works well. There’s no need to worry; diplomacy is basically functional, which is about as good as it gets in a computer game.

And it’s really fun in fight. Civ is beaten there by humanity, among many other things. It is similar to a scaled-down version of Age of Wonders, where a tactical fight analogous to XCOM is played out over many hexes of the battlefield while an overworld conflict is magnified. It has nice subtlety to it; sightlines and elevation are important, as is location and, at higher play levels, a clear knowledge of the capabilities of all the various units. It’s efficient, light, airy, and deep when desired. In many respects, it’s a game that captures a lot of the essence of Humankind: it may have a lighter touch than some others in the genre, but it’s also easier to get over the normal fog of a new strategy game and is elegant, well-thought-out, and clean.

The issue is that issues also occur while thinking things out. Though this may seem cliché, humanity appears to have evolved on its own ideological sliding scale. Authenticity on the one hand, and playfulness on the other. For now, Humanity is just a little bit too much to the later end of the axis, which leads to instability and the loss of the delicate balance that makes a great historical strategy sing. A little magic, the unpredictable quality of a Great Person, and the personal touch of recognized, well-known faction leaders are lacking from your standard, otherwise mannequin-like avatar. Alternatively, those vile, stereotyped adversaries that endure, rather than the identity of the person behind “the green faction,” whose moniker changes every few rounds.

Still. Since many games—especially ones that are based on open development like this one—inevitably alter throughout the months and years after debut, Amplitude has pledged to support Humankind for a while. The studio will still have a winner if they can find a way to balance things just a little more in the direction of enjoyment later on. Hopefully, an opportunity will present themselves that allows them to go that extra step.

This year, I finally finished playing through the first Psychonauts game. I have been attempting to imagine what it would have been like to play it when it was first released in 2005, at a really difficult period of my life, and before I had given trauma and depression any serious thought. Had it provided me with any insightful information? I’m not sure. Although Psychonauts is a creative and compassionate game, it is by no means a clinical or cohesive examination of mental health, nor does it make any claims to be. The game is a psychedelic 3D platformer that reworks clichés of lunacy and repression in a humorous and humanizing way. Players may explore mental settings ranging from Oedipal circuses of pulsating flesh to Manchurian Candidate suburbia. It’s far more of a bizarre gothic comedy than an instructional story, with its winding asylums and tangible emotional baggage. However, I believe that the 2005 version of myself may have found comfort in its instructors, Sasha Nein, Milla Vodello, and yes, even Coach Oleander, who openly shares their all-too-fragile inner lives with you in order to help you refine your abilities as a burgeoning psychic agent.

While I rolled and bounced around those brilliant stages, fiddling with Sasha’s tightly wound neural plumbing and paying a visit to the house fire inside Milla’s cerebral disco, I reflected on how, in different ways, my own teachers had shared their knowledge with me, put up with my intrusive questions, and generally exposed themselves so that I could grow. I don’t want to imply that limits have no role in education or that this is how everyone teaches or is educated. However, it’s undoubtedly the type of relationship that many educators and game creators want to establish: this is the universe of my experience. Come spend some time with me and see what insights you may uncover. After gaining knowledge from these realms, you may assist its owner face their inner demons and uncover long-forgotten truths by restoring them. Psychonauts 2, which is the same smart and compassionate game as its predecessor but sleeker, busier, and with updated ideas on mental health that reflect, among other things, the pressure and burnout of the original’s development, continues this premise.

Razputin Aquato, a former circus performer who is now a mind-diver, joins the intern program at Psychonauts HQ, an Epcot Center-style hub where you can discover brains in hamster balls and a guy disturbed by images of flying bacon. Psychonauts 2 picks up immediately after the events of VR expandalone Rhombus of Ruin. The first thing you do is break into the memory of a guy from the previous game named Dr. Loboto. He is connected to a renowned psychic megavillain from many years ago. The story revolves on examining the megavillain in question—who, surprise!, could be more than just a memory—and her connection to the original Psychonauts, a group of traumatized hippie Avengers whose brainscapes all desperately need a janitor visit.

The Motherlobe, together with the surrounding woodlands, mine tunnels, and swamps, are the intricate and dramatic landscape of the game. It has a plethora of items, bounce pads, rope swings, rails, ladders, collapsing platforms, and supplementary fetchquests. The “dungeons” are the thoughts of the individuals you encounter; to extract information about your ultimate enemy, you must delve into and revitalize their brains. From the first game, Milla, Sasha, Oleander, Ford Crueller, and Raz’s intermittent lover Lili are back; newcomers include a group of bullies who harass other interns and Raz’s circus siblings, who were all brought up to distrust psychics and are hence wary of their errant brother. There are some amazing sketches, such as the intern making pancakes with the help of some frightened forest creatures (“I CAN HEAR YOU ROLLING YOUR EYES, MRS THATCHER”), splitscreen heist sequences, and any scene involving Raz’s sugary-savage mother Donatella. The writing is more sweet and dry than laugh-out-loud funny.

Raz is much the same lanky but clever 10-year-old as before: the brunt of many jokes, endearingly innocent at times, wise beyond his years at others. Although the platforming controls have been improved, he still possesses all of his previous psychic abilities, including telekinesis, mind bullets, pyrokinesis, the ability to turn other characters into CCTV cameras through clairvoyance, and the capacity to channel his brainwaves into a balloon that can be dangled to glide or run on for speed. He is also still a skilled acrobat.

Complete with warts, the previous advancement system is also returned. Psy-cards are inserted into eyes to enhance skills, which come in groups of four and earn points for your intern card. It’s still a rather devious method of leveling up, reminiscent of Destiny’s absurd currencies, and that’s just the beginning. Psychonauts 2 features a whole maze of fallen stuff, including “half-a-minds” that may be coupled to raise your maximum health, “insight” statuettes that provide you extra level-up points, and psitanium shards that you can use to purchase consumables and “pins” that change your skills. But it does so with grace, as the majority of the collectibles either make a joke or enhance the scene in some way. Examples include a sentimental piece of luggage that beams when it is reunited with its matching luggage tag and the use of “figments of the imagination” to add depth to levels with doodles that are thematically related to germs, tombstones, and cats.

At moments, Psychonauts 2 seems to be trying too hard to be a fighting style builder in the vein of Devil May Cry. Extra combo hits, ground pounds, health draining, dodge attacks, and projectile modifications are among the upgrade choices. Even with the addition of a new auto-lock, the main combat isn’t particularly engaging or tight enough to warrant all the other features, and in any event, 3D platformers like this one work best when your powers are clear and undistorted. It’s a hassle to continuously opening the ability wheel to alter things up during multiple-wave confrontations, and the techniques are seldom more difficult than hitting an adversary with the appropriate talent.

But it’s more than made up for by the mindscapes. Psychonauts 2 is exciting in part because it’s a return to the idea of level-based worlds, which are becoming rare in the industry due to a disdain for any kind of interruption. This is partly due to virtuoso “no-cuts” auteurism and partly to the contemporary cult of engagement and monetisation. Double Fine avoids all of that without trying because it chooses mental geography above physical geography. Naturally, there are pauses in the flow—after all, who among us really thinks in a single universe all the time?—and our brains are not all the same size.

Psychonauts 2 is like unwrapping a bunch of gifts when you play it. While there are traces of classic platforming elements like lava and ice, the majority of the levels are exciting creative creations that subtly alter the core mechanics of hopping and shooting. There’s a full-fledged 90s cooking show within one brain, complete with some of the most well-observed musical pastiches I’ve seen in a game, with terrifying hand puppet judges and an enthusiastic audience of meat and vegetables who have to prepare in the allotted time. A “Feelmobile” transports you between the main stage and camping areas, while another has a rock concert dressed in Sergeant Pepper colors, with rainbow bridges snaking from prisms across a dazzling lake of stars.

These spaces all conceal other areas. Massive bottles on the tropical coast of a potted planet reminiscent of Mario Galaxy open like doors to an iridescent swamp of yellows and violets, with handy holes blasted out of the dirt by spouting seedpod heads. Another city level is situated in a very filthy bowling shoe, where germs in trilbies are waiting for the much-feared Spray-pocalypse to arrive. Though not nearly as inventive as the original game’s take on tabletop wargaming, there are references to other games such as Super Monkey Ball. Additionally, bosses, which were introduced as a result of Double Fine’s mid-development cooperation with Microsoft, are very elaborate in concept but executed a little shakily.

These universes transcend mere parodies. Psychonauts 2 may stray from tradition and allusions, yet its little details are meaningful. It all comes down to consistency and follow-through: if you’re going to recreate a character’s backstory as a theme park ride, you’ll need ticket booths manned by enchanted employees, gantries above that serve as observation platforms for stenciled handymen holding cigarettes, and a control room where Lili can issue directives into a microphone. With NPCs pursuing their own little stories in the corners, each inner world has a slice-of-life atmosphere reminiscent of Pixar. Examples include animatronic clerks becoming agitated over misdirected mail, a dragon attempting to talk down a knight in shining armor, and circus fleas squabbling over who gets to ride the trapeze first.

For the original game, everything of this was accurate. However, Psychonauts 2 distinguishes itself by carefully balancing a more nuanced grasp of issues like anxiety, addiction, and post-traumatic stress disorder with a caricature and empathy that treats brain anomalies as peculiarities. Although the game’s initial screen cautions you that it is a work of imagination, a feeling of duty based on collaboration with organizations like Take This nonetheless shapes the game’s levels and content. Raz, for instance, often requests consent before entering someone’s head, but it’s clear that this isn’t always feasible when bad guys are involved.

Recognizing that an action-platformer template may not be the ideal setting for what are effectively acts of intrusive therapy—or, in the case of hostile characters, sanitized interrogations—is a part of that responsibility ethic. This is particularly evident in certain new foes and gadgets. A grappling that is described as creating “mental connections” by connecting ideas with dotted lines between spirals of gray thinking is one of the new features. As soon as Raz gets his hands on this, he uses it to ruinously manipulate someone’s thoughts, turning their inner world into a tormented cross between a casino and a hospital. It’s a startling but welcome admission that using someone’s mental health as a test subject has the potential to lead to abuse.

Meanwhile, the enlarged roster of enemies teeters intriguingly close to a replication of crippling mental abnormalities in the vein of Serious Games. On the lighter end of the spectrum, there are Judges wielding enormous gavels; Doubts that weigh you down; and Bad Moods that float about cursing until you use Clairvoyance to peer through their eyes and locate the imprisoned heart that will make them laugh again. However, there are also more intense recreations of panic attacks, which take the form of multicolored monsters that teleport and spew darts until they get ensnared in a slow-motion bubble. When you first come across these beings, it’s inside the head of someone who is experiencing dissociation and sensory overload. Conversely, enablers are the goblin cheerleaders who provide invincibility to other cognitive fauna.

Psychonauts 2 is similar like unwrapping a bag of gifts when you play it.

There’s a conflict between Double Fine’s ongoing homage to different gothic clichés and the second game’s more serious knowledge of subjects like consent and gaslighting, but I never felt that Psychonauts took any harmful liberties with these depictions. A moment of awkwardness occurs when Agent Nein pulls Raz aside to give him a lesson about the previously mentioned act of wanton rewiring, all the while giving him the power to return to any brain he has visited in order to take care of any “unfinished business”. In this case, the platform game’s collect-a-thon feature triumphs over the narrative it aims to convey. The last level seems to follow this similar pattern, hinting at the rising self-knowledge and accepting ethic that permeates most of the earlier stages. However, it concludes with you punting someone’s excessively spiteful streak into a deep well of repression—because every platformer has a boss.

Though I’m not convinced these are all critiques. Part of the fun, in my opinion, is in seeing Double Fine navigate this intricate web of clichés and understanding, inadequately translating very complicated processes into buildings, adversaries, and powers. Once again, Psychonauts 2 is a world of flawed educators and learning settings, a place to process dark ideas with differing degrees of sincerity and ridiculousness. Its people are delightful to be around, and its environments are marvels of unmatched inventiveness. Even if I may have missed it the first time, I’m happy that indie games like this are still being produced.