The Mad Doctor, revealed to be still alive and now mostly communicates by singing, arrives and speaks of how he has reformed and requests Oswald to join forces with him in order to save Wasteland from this new threat.

Getting the transmission after being awoken from bed, Mickey enters Yen Sid's workshop once more and takes back the Magic Paintbrush to aid him as he returns to Wasteland.

Oswald joins up with them in Dark Beauty Castle, explaining the Mad Doctor warned him of Blotworx - Blotlings piloting Beetleworx-like battle mechs.

After heading to the Mad Doctor's laboratory in Disney Gulch and defeating a Blotworx dragon, they find out the projectors were intentionally sabotaged as Small Pete presents evidence pointing to OsTown's grumpy caretaker Gremlin Prescott, whom the heroes had earlier caught assembling a secret television device.

The group follow him to Fort Wasteland, a fortress abandoned during the Blot's revolt, and onto the Floatyard, where they find Prescott has built a gigantic battle mech modelled after himself.

One of the Mad Doctor's Beetleworx places Prescott in a hypnotic trance, making him publicly confess to being behind the chaos – which convinces everyone except for Mickey's group.

He crash-landed in Disney Gulch and set up his lab there, creating the Blotworx as part of a plot for revenge, but was forced to cast them out due to their hostility.

In the attic of Lonesome Manor, which has been retooled into a secret television studio, they find the Mad Doctor's diary, from which they learn of his true intentions.

Wanting to become a Toon again after discovering that his Beetleworx form had begun to deteriorate, the Mad Doctor schemed to capture the Guardians in Autotopia as he knew they would have the power to restore him.

If redeemed, the Mad Doctor gets him and his former enemies to safety; and, after expressing remorse for his misdeeds, is turned back into a Toon by the freed Guardians as their sign of no contempt between them.

Oswald uses a remote control in a way similar to how Mickey uses his paintbrush, to attack (or befriend, in some cases) enemy characters and to power or reprogram machines as needed to complete tasks.

[3] These rumors were further encouraged when Disney France and Warren Spector invited the French media to an "epic project" taking place on March 27, 2012.

[5] Following this, on March 20, 2012, the official French Nintendo magazine posted a comment on Twitter, revealing that Disney had plans to create a companion to the main sequel for the 3DS, under the name Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion.

Fans long speculated that the recently located Oswald cartoon Hungry Hobos (1928) would appear as an unlockable, but the final game included the Silly Symphony Skeleton Dance (1929) instead.

[9] The previously canceled PC port of Epic Mickey 2 was given a limited release in Central European countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic in October 2013.

Following these financial losses, Disney made an official statement on January 29, 2013 that Junction Point Studios was to be closed in order to direct resources to other projects, with Warren Spector also stating that he was "in doubt" about the future of the series.