LOST RECORDS: BLOOM & RAGE

Life is strange, but the past is stranger

Developer/publisher Don’t Nod

Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series

Origin Canada

Release TBA 2024

Don’t Nod PC, PS5, Xbox Series Canada TBA 2024

Watching the reveal trailer for the debut release from Don’t Nod’s new Montréal studio, if you didn’t already know it came from several members of the core team behind the original Life Is Strange, you could take an educated guess. From its teenage leads to its colour palette (no one loves golden hour quite this much), its use of music and magic-realist style – with themes of time, memory, self-discovery and secrets in the mix – the game’s creative lineage is more than evident. But, as the action fast-forwards 27 years to the present day, it’s clear the team behind it has greater ambitions this time.

That’s apparent when producer Luc Baghadoust and creative director Michel Koch talk of their desire not just to create a new game, but a new universe. When the two were involved with the creation of Life Is Strange, it was always considered to be a one and done. “We had absolutely no idea of where we could go – if we could go elsewhere,” Koch says. “It was just the story of Max and Chloe.” After it became a huge success, he adds, the team had the opportunity to work with Square Enix on sequel Life Is Strange 2 (not to mention the charming interstitial spinoff, The Awesome Adventures Of Captain Spirit). But these were never creatively conceived as a continuation. “What is most exciting creatively with Lost Records,” Koch says, “is that we can think of where we would love to go for other games, other stories.”

To achieve that goal, the pair understood it was time to step away from the series with which they’d made their name. They may have helped establish Life Is Strange, but they didn’t own the property; Square Enix did. “We wanted to create characters where we could really oversee their future,” Koch says. That meant a physical move, too. Discussions about expanding the studio beyond its Parisian headquarters had been ongoing for some time, we’re told, while Koch adds that, when working on Life Is Strange 2, he began to feel that the studio had grown too large: “I was working as game director but I didn’t know absolutely everybody on the team.” As such, he warmed to the idea of “an opportunity to start from scratch, recreating the team on a more human scale.” A move to North America made perfect sense, he says, not just allowing Don’t Nod to draw from a fresh talent pool, particularly for writers and narrative and game designers, but “to be closer to our audience, and to where the game takes place. There were a lot of things that felt right with this move.” 

The creative seed for Bloom & Rage was first planted several years ago, back when Baghadoust and Koch were finishing their work on Life Is Strange 2