It struck me, then, how much the conversation around mental health has changed since 2015 and 2021. How often did you even hear a term like "mental health" in 2005? The world remains far from perfect, but the discourse and availability of resources has vastly changed."Mental Health Advisory: Psychonauts 2 contains artistic interpretations of serious mental conditions including addiction, PTSD, panic attacks, anxiety, and delusions. There are also images that may be upsetting to people with dental phobia. These conditions are usually presented in a light-hearted or even comical manner, but still might be distressing to some players. Ultimately, Psychonauts 2 is a game about empathy and healing. If you find yourself experiencing a negative reaction to this content, or if you need mental health resources, please visit TakeThis.org/mental-health-resources."
But Schafer admits some of what Psychonauts did was by accident, a mark of how empathy as a design trait created good results. With the sequel, there was a lot more intentional care. "Oh, that's the part we got right, we should definitely do that part again," he joked.Walking down that path involved working with the mental health organization Take This, and the expanded resources of their new owner, Microsoft. I previously profiled how this same division of Microsoft helped the Grounded team at Obsidian find a way to include spiders as one of their central villains while giving folks with arachnophobia ways to play the game, too.“The general way we approached things on the first game was to treat people, even the villains in the game, [as people]. Empathy is built into the game mechanic.”