Don’t Nod, finest recognized for creating the Life is Strange franchise, opened a brand new studio in Montreal in 2020. At that point, the studio had left the Life is Strange collection behind, but it surely primed this new studio to create a non secular successor beneath the steering of builders behind that hit collection, together with Luc Luc Baghadoust and Michel Koch. The Game Awards 2023 bore the fruits of this labor with the reveal of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage.
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is a brand new narrative-focused sport that follows the story of 4 ladies who reunite 27 years after a traumatic supernatural occasion. We don’t know a lot else about it but, however my dialog with three builders at Don’t Nod Montreal painted an image of how the studio is getting ready for Lost Records to be a sport that not solely lives as much as expectations as a Life is Strange successor, however places and retains Don’t Nod Montreal on the map.
Setting the document straight
“We’ve had this opportunity to create this studio on the basis that we wanted,” Baghadoust, the sport’s government producer, tells Digital Trends. “Now, for the first time, we can build a strategy regarding how we’re going to make this a studio dedicated to this franchise. We shape the way we work, the creative, the team, the production, the tools, the tech; everything is made toward this goal. It’s the Lost Records franchise, but also the Don’t Nod Montreal project.”
Trending Deal:
While Don’t Nod shouldn’t be but able to share any mission assertion of types for your complete franchise, Bloom & Rage’s premise harks again to the character-focused coming-of-age dramas that Don’t Nod is thought for, with inventive director Koch telling us that the pandemic ended up influencing the sport in that the thought of connection, or lack thereof, is a central theme that Bloom & Rage tackles.
Don’t Nod
Its premise does share some similarities to Yellowjackets, though Koch tells Digital Trends that Don’t Nod’s concepts for Blood & Rage predated that present’s launch; it’s seemingly that the identical sources, equivalent to Stephen King and Twin Peaks, impressed each. The most vital affect looming over Lost Records is Life is Strange, although. That’s the franchise that put the studio on the map, but it surely’s additionally a property owned by Square Enix that Don’t Nod didn’t have direct management over.
As a end result, Don’t Nod moved away from that franchise following Life is Strange 2, with Deck Nine creating 2021’s Life is Strange: True Colors. Lost Records may doubtlessly function a Life is Strange successor from the unique inventive staff, one which Don’t Nod has full possession and management over. Koch appeared fairly excited concerning the thought of build up not solely a single sport, however a complete franchise that utterly belongs to the creatives at Don’t Nod Montreal.
“We are working on this first game as a complete entity, but we have in mind the links and all we can unravel with further games, how we could have characters come back, and what could be the follow-ups for some characters in the future,” Koch says. “It’s really liberating and great creatively to be able to work like that. Even if there was only one game, we still had the chance to think of how things can extend and know that if things go right, we will be able to do that and extend those games with other ideas, follow-ups, and side stories that we have imagined. As a creator, you cannot ask for something better than that. ”
Don’t Nod
hhhh
Most story and gameplay particulars about Bloom & Rage are nonetheless beneath wraps. However, the builders wish to evolve the narrative journey gameplay expertise with this new entry. “There are core base mechanics that are part of the games we make, and we’ll still want to use on these games regarding exploration, dialogues, choices, and consequences. But there’s also room for innovation,” Baghadoust says.
Koch provides that Don’t Nod referenced the strengths and shortcomings of Life is Strange’s gameplay because it created Lost Records. He praises the rewind mechanic in Life is Strange for providing that company and critiqued Life is Strange 2’s distance from these power-based penalties, though it was thematically acceptable. With Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, Don’t Nod desires to lean into giving gamers extra company.
“Something that we’re trying to push more is giving the feeling of more agency to our players with our dialogue system. We make sure that you feel more connected with your character when you’re talking rather than just watching an interactive movie,” he says. “Immediately, we reward the interaction with the controller so you feel like you’re playing the game and not just playing a character who then makes the game evolve.”
Don’t Nod
While opening in the midst of the pandemic introduced its personal challenges, Don’t Nod Montreal finally settled in as a remote-friendly studio solely targeted on making Lost Records the most effective it could possibly be. Frederique Fourny-Jennings, Don’t Nod Montreal managing director, who was additionally on the decision, likened having a profitable first sport as a studio to changing a attempt in rugby, because it means they’ll get to stay round and make extra regardless of the financial hardships the sport business is dealing with.
“One thing that’s deeply important to me is courage, the courage to manage, the courage to make decisions, the courage to stick to what we want to do in a way that makes sense while working with all the other stakeholders,” Fourny-Jennings tells Digital Trends. “You have marketing and biz-dev and many other people revolving around us whose mandate is for the project to be a critical success, a commercial success. We have all this we need to bring together, but it’s really the courage to keep the essence of what we’re trying to do, to keep these values that we’re trying to bring in our game, in our studio.”
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage launches for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S in late 2024.
Editors’ Recommendations