In most cases, I try to maintain a thin veneer of professional integrity. Then Double Fine announces Psychonauts 2 and all decorum goes out the window.

Though last night’s Game Awards offered fewer splashy game announcements than usual, it did deliver the first teaser trailer for Psychonauts 2, the long-awaited sequel to Double Fine’s 2005 cult classic. We’ll still be waiting for a little while – according to Polygon, the game is in pre-production and won’t be finished until at least 2018 – but Psychonauts 2 is fucking happening and I couldn’t be more excited.

The original Psychonauts told the story of a boy named Raz who explored other people’s minds at summer camp for psychics, and the absurd, whimsical humor made Psychonauts one of the funniest and most original games of its era. Creator Tim Schafer has been squirreling away ideas for the sequel for nearly a decade, and after years of pitching the game to anyone and everyone it looks like he’s finally managed to secure the funding to make that dream a reality.

On that front there are a few details that make Psychonauts 2 unusual. While Double Fine has raised independent capital to cover most of the production costs, the studio will again be crowd-funding some of the budget. However, Double Fine has eschewed Kickstarter in favor of Fig, a new startup platform that allows fans to fully invest in the project and to potentially receive a financial return that goes well beyond traditional backer rewards like t-shirts and art books. Schafer hopes to raise $3.3 million through the Fig campaign (which is now live). He goes into far greater detail in his interview with Polygon, which is well worth a read if you’re interested in the project.

Psychonauts 2 will be similar in scope to its predecessor. That makes it far more ambitious than recent Double Fine projects, though Schafer expects Psychonauts 2 to be more manageable thanks to that added experience. Unlike Broken Age, Double Fine seems to know exactly what it wants to do with Psychonauts 2, and I can’t wait to get inside the heads of a whole new cast of misfits.

via Polygon