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After nine years, the gaming world’s radical experiment in transparency has come to a close. Double Fine PsychOdyssey is a documentary series which intimately chronicles the making of the platforming game Psychonauts 2, from the first sketches in a notebook in 2015 to its full release in 2021. The small film crew at Two Player Productions recorded every step of the process, accruing more than 5,000 hours of footage. This was whittled down into a 32-episode series, released for free on YouTube and finally capped off with a thoughtful epilogue last month.
You might expect a documentary of this length to be exhausting or indulgent, particularly when it’s about something so technical, but it is a riveting watch. How games are made is a subject many gamers know little about, and PsychOdyssey offers a rich portrait of the process. Here are the mechanics of human creativity, the brutal realities of the gaming industry and the passion and heart of the people who choose to do it anyway.
PsychOdyssey was always intended to stand on its own, rather than being a kind of promotional material. There are other good collectives releasing gaming documentaries on YouTube, such as the deep dives into the teams at Noclip or People Make Games, but PsychOdyssey’s story benefits immeasurably by being filmed in real time, not told as a history. You’re there for every breakthrough and bitter argument.
Double Fine is a game studio known for its eccentric, creative games — helmed by Tim Schafer, one of the most beloved figures in the industry, known for the early Monkey Island games and Grim Fandango. We watch Psychonauts 2 take shape in Double Fine’s San Francisco office, from brainstorming to concept art to combat design. The team could not have predicted how many surprises would befall development — several employees make emotional departures; somebody ends up in hospital; and the offices of the game’s financial backer are raided under suspicion of insider trading. That’s not to mention what’s going on outside the office: the Trump presidency, the pandemic, the California wildfires.
Yet it is to the documentary team’s credit that these events feel secondary to the emotional stakes within the company. There is ample drama in the simple story of a team trying to make a creative project in today’s economy. The camera’s gaze encourages us to empathise with the producer who’s constantly talked over by her boss and the programmer who tries to raise issues about company culture. There are no true villains, but we see many people presented in deeply unflattering moments — including Schafer himself. There is also the uplifting story of a documentary crew member who is slowly tempted in front of the lens to become a game designer in his own right.
The post-pandemic years have had mass lay-offs in the games industry, along with studio closures and dubious industry acquisitions. Companies tend to favour opacity in their communications, which makes Schafer’s decision to open up his studio, warts and all, so striking. While most gaming documentaries celebrate the joys of the medium, such as Netflix’s 2020 series High Score or the 2012 film Indie Game: The Movie, here we get an unflinching look inside an unsustainable system where creative people are chewed up by unreasonable demands on their time and emotional resources. There are painful conversations about overwork; different management styles violently collide; and we witness the process of an indie studio being acquired by an industry giant. Despite the unflattering light in which we sometimes see the company’s management, job applications to Double Fine rose after the documentary began airing — indicating game workers have been eagerly awaiting greater transparency.
The series is revelatory on the multidisciplinary undertaking that is making a modern game. By its final episode you cannot help but agree with the designer who says: “It’s a miracle that any game comes out.” It has already become a cult hit, evidenced by the recent special edition Blu-ray release (already sold out). This documentary may end up a more valuable contribution to the gaming canon than the game whose development it chronicles. After watching PsychOdyssey, you will never look at a video game the same way again.
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