Composer Peter McConnell gets us even more excited for 'Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin'

February 16, 2017

Anticipation for a new Psychonauts game has been at an all time high ever since the long awaited sequel, Psychonauts 2, was announced at the 2015 Game Awards. While Psychonauts 2 is planned for a 2018 release, Double Fine Productions is giving us another chance to head back to the Psychonauts universe with the upcoming release of Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin.

Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin will allow players to see through the eyes of Raz for the first time in 12 years, but it gets even better, because the game is being exclusively released on Playstation VR (Virtual Reality), fans will actually get to see through the eyes of Raz.

“VR is almost made for Psychonauts because it’s about shifting your perspective into other people’s perspective so it works really well as a VR experience,” said composer Peter McConnell.

Peter McConnell is an industry legend who has worked on countless games including the Sly Cooper franchise, Grim Fandango, Escape From Monkey Island and of course, the original Psychonauts.

Considering McConnell composed the amazing soundtrack for the first Psychonauts, fans rejoiced when he was signed on for this new installment.

“We didn’t have a lot of resources to work with in the first game, so I did the whole thing out of a very small space and we were only able to hire a couple of live musicians so it was very much a budget operation the first time around. Despite that, I was really happy with the result musically and those themes are among my favorite themes that I’ve done.”

McConnell assured that fans of the original themes would be happy with the new game as they kept most of the character themes the same as they were in the original.

Considering McConnell has decades of experience, some of the very first games he worked on were point and click adventures. Twenty years later, we’ve reached a new era of VR gaming where VR gaming isn’t just becoming more common but slowly starting to become the norm.

“It reminds me a lot of doing the old LucasArts games simply because it’s new and it’s new in a pretty big way,” said McConnell, “This feels similar because it’s cutting edge technology and there’s a lot of questions that come out because things haven’t been done before.”

While fans are excited for this new installment, excitement for Psychonauts 2 is still at an all-time high. McConnell confirmed he would be composing the soundtrack for Psychonauts 2 but we still have some time to wait.

“We’re still pretty early on. The thing about music in a game is that it tends to come later on in the process. For as something as big as Psychonauts or Broken Age, a lot of times the game will be in development up to a year before the composer comes on,” explained McConnell, “I know the team’s been working hard on it.”

Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin can be preordered here before the game officially releases on February 21. Anyone that preorders Rhombus of Ruin will also receive the original Psychonauts.

Check out the trailer below!