Psychonauts/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Acclaimed Flop: This game is considered to be one of the best on the original Xbox. The sales sadly don't reflect this. According to the Psychonauts 2015 documentary, however, the sales were not as bad as others claimed it was. Tim Schafer said everyone said it sold 100,000 when it sold 400,000. Things would also turn around when Double Fine's deal with the publisher Majesco expired, enabling the studio to release a slightly Updated Re-release through digital platforms such as Steam. According to Double Fine, opening up for digital sales increased the sales numbers with about 1.2 million, making the game into what be described as a bit of a (very) late blooming Sleeper Hit, and it actually ended up turning enough of a profit to partially fund the sequel.
  • Cross-Dressing Voices: Dogen, Mills, Maloof, J.T., Quentin, Vernon, Elton, and Little Olly all had female voice actors (several of whose voice actors also voiced other, female characters).
  • Development Gag: When Raz first sneaks into the camp, Oleander guesses that his name starts with "D". The previous protagonist, scrapped in development, was named D'Artagan. You can also see D'Artagan in the final cutscene, hiding out in the latrine.
  • DVD Commentary: An iPhone app has been released of the memory vault pictures with an accompanying commentary track, featuring lead Tim Scafer and Scott Campbell, the artist who drew the images.
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: It's Zim! And The Red Guy! And LeChuck! And...
  • Screwed by the Network: Probably the most notorious example ever.
  • Talking to Himself: Andre Sogliuzzo voices both halves of a split personality, Fred/Napoleon Bonaparte, who argues with himself. With such drastically different accents and tone, it's uncanny.
  • Vindicated by Cable: Though it sold very poorly when first released, it slowly built up a very positive reputation as a Cult Classic among gamers, eventually becoming a consistent top seller on Digital Distribution services like Steam, even outside of sales. The video accompanying the crowdfunding effort for the sequel boasts that its total sales after all these years are 1.7 million, which would be an impressive number of sales for any game, not to mention a marked improvement over how it sold during its initial release.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • The concept art for Gloria's Theatre shows much more detail than the actual level.
    • Waterloo World originally had a small, functioning strategy game that would be played rather than the comparatively simple missions you're given, but it was taken out because it was boring.
  • Write Who You Know: Boyd Cooper is allegedly based on somebody Tim Schafer knew.