Psychonauts and the Evolution of Self-Help By Reece Skelley (he/him)
This article contains spoilers for Psychonauts 1, which came out 16 years ago, and mild spoilers for Psychonauts 2, which came out a month ago. Psychonauts is a beloved cult classic video game for many reasons, but one of its most prescient – and most underrated – reasons is its sincere display of empathy for mental illness. Since we’ve all been in a big spooky lockdown and have had quite enough time to explore the depths of our own depraved minds, let me take a few minutes to shill for a game about jumping into someone else’s. Let’s quickly summarise for the uninitiated: Psychonauts is a series of 3D platformers in which Razputin Aquato, our ten-year-old hero, runs away from the circus and sneaks into Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp, with the goal of joining the fabled super-spy agency of the Psychonauts. Cue a few conspiracy-laden shenanigans – someone stealing the brains of campers here, or practicing necromancy to revive an old psychic war criminal there – and the rest is history. Every level takes place in a person’s subconscious, and as the first game progresses from psychic summer
20
If you don’t beat that mental apparition of Napoleon Bonaparte in a non-copyright infringing game of Risk, then who will?
camp to mental asylum, the minds on display become more fractured. A saner subconscious, such as Agent Milla Vodello’s internal disco party, can compartmentalise infernal past tragedies into near-missable secret areas. On the other hand, the famous “Milkman Conspiracy” sends suburban paranoia past the boundaries of physics, with swirling pavement turning up and around on itself. The allegories and gimmicks are rarely subtle – hell, most enemies are straight up artistic interpretations of negative emotions, like regrets trying to “weigh you down” by dropping anvils on your head. That’s what makes exploring these worlds
and beating these enemies so fun. Beyond the normal satisfying sense of progression, you feel like you’re actually making a difference for these characters. Unfortunately, there’s a fine line between assisting someone with their demons, and carrying their burden on your own shoulders. In hindsight, the original Psychonauts has no time to distinguish between the two properly, because it’s a video game. It’s an interactive medium; activity rules over passivity here, so of course you’re going to sort the characters’ emotional baggage for them. If you don’t beat that mental apparition of Napoleon Bonaparte in a non-copyright
