 According to Schafer, Brütal Legend had been in development since 2007, prior to the completion of Psychonauts. Schafer noted that in Psychonauts, they attempted to bring together a lot of assets, including characters and environments, but were not able to successfully integrate them on their first attempt and had to start over on the development of some. In several cases for Psychonauts, changes made in gameplay required them to return and redesign levels to account for the new features. The company decided at the start to use the scrum development approach for Brütal Legend, which they found worked well with their company's culture, allowing them to quickly arrive at playable targets at every milestone. For example, the team was able to bring about their terrain engine, renderer, and a playable Eddie Riggs within a month of development, and by the third month, the ability for Eddie to drive about the terrain, running over hordes of enemies.
