PSYCHONAUTS 2

RELEASED OUT NOW! Format PC

Also on Playstation 4, Xbox One,

Xbox Series S|X

Publisher Xbox Game Studios

If Pixar made Inception it might resemble this kaleidoscopic 3D platformer, an extremely belated sequel to an original Pc/xbox game. As one of the titular agents, you project into troubled minds to heal their hosts. But it’s less tip-toeing around mother issues as it is trampolining across landscapes born of personal trauma. An isolated pensioner’s brain is an archipelago of lonely islands, say, while another with abandonment issues needs coaxing through a cooperative cooking show.

What was already a great idea in 2005’s Psychonauts really soars here. Literally so, thanks to tighter acrobatics, but also in harnessing newer tech to put bigger ideas on screen. This is a game that starts with a Mission: Impossible con being infected by a dental fixation, and only gets wilder from there. By the end you’ve escaped floods knitted from human hair and explored a bacterial metropolis inside a bowling shoe. Ice world, jungle world and fire world this is not.

The focus on grand interior trips, and the characters that host them, does mean that a fun new cast of trainee Psychonauts get slightly sidelined after the first act. And a scarcity of combat encounters means the upgrade system doesn’t properly stretch its legs. But these are minor complaints about a rare example of a game that’ll get inside your head and stay there. Matthew Castle