Psychonauts 2 release date may be set for August

Pyschonauts 2 — (Image credit: Double Fine)

The long-awaited, long-delayed Psychonauts 2 release date may fall in August 2021 based on newly updated Steam listings.

As spotted by The Gamer s, ResetEra user GrrImAFridge shared a screenshot of Steam's "Coming Soon" games list which, as of Friday, June 4, had sandwiched Psychonauts 2 between two games launching on August 25, as well as a third planned for summer 2021. This would suggest that the sequel to Double Fine's cult classic platformer is also coming on or around August 25, but the word suggest is putting in some work there.

We know Psychonauts 2 is on track to release this year, so this August target isn't too far-fetched, especially with E3 2021 and a potential announcement from Double Fine coming soon. However, Steam updates and shuffles upcoming games all the time, so the positioning of Psychonauts 2 on the Coming Soon list shouldn't be treated as gospel.

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For starters, one of the games that helped define this release date range, old-school FPS Azy, is now listed for August 24, which is a small but important deviation. And if we pull up the current Coming Soon feed, we'll find Psychonauts 2 between games with Q4 2021 and fall 2021 release dates, still with a broad 2021 target of its own.

Psychonauts 2 release date — (Image credit: Valve)

The Steam database history for Psychonauts 2 confirms that after its initial 2020 target, its release date was changed to 2021 back in September 2020. Its release date hasn't been touched since, but its Steam listing has seen several arbitrary "Changenumber" updates. As SteamDB notes, a Steam game's Changenumber automatically increments globally and doesn't really mean anything. However, Psychonauts 2's Changenumber was updated the day GrrImAFridge originally spotted this August 25 target, and it was also changed today, June 7, just seven hours before I went to confirm its position in the Coming Soon list.

With no change to its official Steam release date, it was quite curious to suddenly see Psychonauts 2 tied to August 25, even tangentially. However, it's possible this was just a coincidence caused by some inconsequential housekeeping in Steam's backend. Hopefully we get official word on Psychonauts 2's final release date at E3, specifically during the Xbox showcase, with Double Fine being a leading member of Xbox Game Studios and all.

Here's the full E3 2021 schedule and what to expect.