Welcome to my Psychonauts guide!
Psychonauts is a very creative platformer game full of atmosphere and humor. It's a very unique and fun game, although sometimes it can be a bit frustrating too.
It takes approximately 8-10 hours to do a first playthrough of the game, maybe a little longer if you aim to 100% it.
This guide was first written while playing the (original) Xbox release of the game. Since then, the game has released for PC as well. As of my latest replaying in 2025, I can safely say the original Xbox version is still a solid version of the game to play. The PC one is probably a little more accessible though. I guess there are also some other versions of the game out there I've never played, but I assume they're comparable to the PC release.
In general, this guide is a bit of a love letter to this game. It meant a lot to me when I first played it in 2005, and it still means a lot to me when I replay it in 2025. I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I have!
This guide aims to be a general walkthrough of all stages, bosses, and collectibles in the game. I have played this game several times and continue to enjoy it, but there are some less than obvious design choices that may leave you with questions.
I do encourage you to try to figure it out for yourself before consulting this guide, but if you're feeling frustrated by something then hopefully I can help you out.
There is also general game information in here that you may consult similar to a manual. If there's anything missing from this guide that you think would be helpful then please reach out and let me know.
The main thing I won't go over is the exact location of every single figment, though I'll try to give you hints as to where to find figments in each world, and any that seemed particularly tricky. The majority of figments will be easy to find as you play the levels, but there's always a few that aren't as obvious.
I also won't be talking about the story/plot here much. I assume you're watching the scenes for yourself and just here to understand how to get through the tricky parts, or to find some missing emotional baggage, so that's what I'm going to stick to explaining.
Sometimes a good old fashioned text file guide is all you want, and I totally respect that. That's why I've maintained and updated this version, but I also think there are some cool enhancements that can be made in an HTML version. So, I created that as well. The contents of both are the same, but you can choose whichever one suits you best.
In the web version of this guide, sections are broken up into different pages, and checklists are provided to track your progress. There's no account needed, and I promise to never put advertisements on the pages. One day I hope to also make videos of each stage, but I haven't had the time to take this on yet.
Ok, that's more than enough introduction. Let's get on with it!