Psychonauts

Psychonauts is a 2005 platform game developed by Double Fine Productions and published by Majesco for Microsoft Windows, Xbox, and PlayStation 2. The game follows Razputin "Raz" Aquato, a young boy gifted with psychic abilities, who runs away from a circus to try to sneak into a summer camp for those with similar powers to become a "Psychonaut", a spy with psychic abilities. He finds that there is a sinister plot occurring at the camp that only he can stop. The game is centered on exploring the strange and imaginative minds of various characters that Raz encounters as a Psychonaut-in-training/"Psycadet" to help them overcome their fears or memories of their past, so as to gain their help and progress in the game. Raz gains use of several psychic abilities during the game that are used for both attacking foes and solving puzzles. Psychonauts was based on an abandoned concept that Double Fine founder Tim Schafer had during his previous development of Full Throttle. The game was initially backed by Microsoft's Ed Fries as a premiere title for the original Xbox console, but several internal and external issues led to difficulties for Double Fine in meeting various milestones and responding to testing feedback. Following Fries' departure in 2004, Microsoft dropped the publishing rights, making the game's future unclear. Double Fine was able to secure Majesco as a publisher a few months later allowing them to complete the game after four and a half years of development. The game was well received, but publisher Majesco encountered a severe financial loss after the game's release and departed from the video game market. Psychonauts has earned a number of industry awards and gained a cult following. It has since been cited as one of the greatest video games ever made. In 2011, Double Fine acquired the rights for the title, allowing the company to republish the title through digital distribution with updates for modern gaming systems and ports for Mac OS X and Linux.

Source: Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0 — Psychonauts · retrieved October 19, 2026

Text is shortened from the original article; the full version is linked.

Developer

Budcat Creations, Double Fine

Publisher

Majesco Entertainment, THQ

First release

April 19, 2005

Series

Psychonauts

Cover

Official thumbnail

Record ID

Q1277009