'Psychonauts 2' developers Double Fine want the next game to be "new and original and surprising".
The company's founder Tim Schafer revealed how the studio has been given the freedom to expand by Xbox Game Pass and has moved into uncharted territory with the title.
Schafer told GamesIndustry: "I think the value proposition now is what we can contribute to the Game Pass subscription service.
"I think everything is moving in some form or another to subscriptions. That's just a relationship with players which I think is really great for Double Fine, where we want to do something new and original and surprising, which means there might be a higher barrier of entry for players who don't know what this is. And by lowering that barrier financially where it's not a matter of buying one $70 game over another and it's more about the time it takes to download them because they're all up there on Game Pass, I think that's a huge way for Double Fine games to find their audiences faster."
Schafer is proud to lead an independent studio and kept faith in many of the employees who had worked on the first game.
He said: "Some of the things I'm glad we did along the way were investing and committing to the team.
"We had a lot of the same people on the first [Psychonauts] on the second game because there's this mutual loyalty and trust on our team. I think we've always maintained that and been very transparent through all the ups and downs over the years. So I feel like really focusing on the team is in some ways the final product of the company, and the games are a by-product of that team relationship being healthy and going well."
