Double Fine’s first major release as part of Xbox Games Studios is coming soon, withPsychonauts 2set to launch on August 25.Psychonauts 2is also in a unique position, however. It starts as a crowd-funded project at Double Fine through the Fig platform, and as such made promises to deliverPsychonauts 2across not just PC and Xbox, but PlayStation 4 as well. Now a controversy is set to ignite, as early performance detail reveals some performance favoritism, particularly between the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
To be clear, Double Fine’s promised support ofboth PS4 and Xbox One forPsychonauts 2is being dealt with evenhandedly. Both platforms will run the game at 1080p and 30fps. Its next-gen platform support where the differences lie. In fact, the differences are so glaring that evenPsychonauts 2on the Xbox Series S will have better performance than on the PS5. There’s a clear reason for that, at the very least. That’s becausePsychonauts 2isn’t technically being released on the PS5.
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Psychonauts 2on the PS5 will run at 1440p with 60fps. That’s an impressive upgrade over the base PS4 performance consideringPsychonauts 2will only be available onPS5 via backward compatibilitywith the PS4 version of the game. To repeat, there is no official PS5 version ofPsychonauts 2. That also means that PS5 will not support either HDR or VRR forPsychonauts 2.
Meanwhile, the support for both theXbox Series S and the Xbox Series Xis genuinely impressive. The Xbox Series S runs at an incredible 2880x1620 resolution at 60fps, a resolution bump over PS5. It also supports a 120fps mode at 1080p, a rarity on the platform. The Xbox Series X supports 4K resolution at 60fps, with an alternate mode of 1440p at 120Hz. Both platforms support both HDR and VRR, making Xbox consoles easily the best console platforms forPsychonauts 2.
While PlayStation fans are going to be disappointed in their options forPsychonauts 2, this isn’t necessarily a surprising direction for Xbox. Its priority is to put outexclusives on Xbox platforms. SincePsychonauts 2had made promises regarding supported platforms already, Xbox had to ensure PS4 was supported. But anything more than that almost certainly doesn’t fit into Xbox’s goals.
The good news is thatPsychonauts 2will still be playable on both PS4 and PS5. That’s more than what will happen for virtually all ofXbox Game Studiosand Bethesda’s upcoming games. Considering how excited Double Fine is about what it’s done withPsychonauts 2, that may be a blessing.
Psychonauts 2releases August 25 on PC, PS4, PS5 (via backward compatibility), Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
