Earlier this summer time, Double Wonderful was liable to being closed. Now it’s unbiased once more and plowing ahead with a $400,000 Kickstarter for its next game jam. If studio founder Tim Schafer is uninterested in the struggle, he’s not exhibiting it. He opened up about leaving Xbox and laid out what’s forward for the Psychonauts 2 maker in a brand new interview with Bloomberg. “Some folks mentioned: ’I’m trying out, that is one too many battles for me.’ However for the remainder of us, it’s like a inventive awakening,” Schafer mentioned.
Double Wonderful, which launched the critically acclaimed but poorly selling Keeper in 2025 and the less well-received pottery party game Kiln earlier this year, didn’t escape Xbox’s present reset fully unscathed. It needed to lay off 23 folks, and Schafer says some preliminary runway funding from Microsoft gained’t final lengthy. However the studio is as soon as once more unbiased and in a position to chart its personal course. That brings with it an amazing quantity of danger, but additionally a clarifying new stage of inventive urgency.
“The video games trade is stuffed with horrible issues, and I can’t change most of them,” Schafer mentioned. “It’s like I’m a captain of a little bit fishing boat. And it’s like worrying about whether or not the ocean is truthful. Not a lot I can do about it. Simply hold this little boat afloat, hold making an attempt to see if that’s a reef, or is {that a} bunch of fish? Is that cash over there?”
He mentioned being a part of Xbox labored for some time, however when new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma got here in to switch Phil Spencer, it was clear issues have been going to vary. “We had a mutually useful mission, which is simply to place nice video games on Sport Go, after which their mission modified,” Schafer mentioned. “I can’t think about any quantity of profitability—until we had a breakout, Minecraft hit that yr—would’ve saved us.”
Whereas the writing might have been on the wall, Xbox’s resolution to divest from Double Wonderful was an abrupt one. Bloomberg reviews that as late as the start of the summer time, there was nonetheless no readability on what Sharma was planning. Schafer discovered it exhausting to get a straight reply from anybody at Xbox, whereas some stopped responding to his messages altogether. As an alternative of being bitter, the veteran developer handled it as a second to rally. He’s presently at PAX West this weekend to help out at Double Fine’s booth.
“Nobody places Double Wonderful out of enterprise apart from me,” is a method Schafer defined it to Bloomberg. “Asha’s not going to shoot my canine. I’m going to shoot it. However I’m not going to shoot it as a result of it’s going to do nice. Lots of people need to stroll the canine.”
Hi, I’m Rishab. I’m a passionate pc gamer and an avid video game content writer. I have been involved with video games for over 2 decades now, and even today, after playing an astronomical number of games over the years, I’m still eager for more. In my free time, you will find me enjoying a hot cup of coffee and playing my favorite relaxing fishing game, Dave the Diver.
