I’m usually reluctant to lean too heavily on comparisons when talking about indie games, especially ones developed and published by independent studios, but when talking about The Lost Records: Bloom & Fury, we have to acknowledge that its history is inextricably linked to the Life is Strange series.
We may never know why Dontnod severed ties with Square Enix, handed its flagship franchise over to former partner Deck Nine, and vowed to publish most of its own titles in-house from now on. What we do know is that Lost records The aim was to launch a new standalone IP for the studio that would maintain its unique identity based on Life is Strange – a task complicated by the fact that the original release window ended up colliding with that of the fifth LIS game, Life is Strange: Double Exposure.
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Dontnod made the wise decision to first delay Lost Records: Bloom & Rage until early 2025 to avoid distracting a large built-in audience that clearly wanted to play both games.
Despite being a few months later than expected this year, Dontnod released a 90-minute preview of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage at Gamescom. As our resident LIS fanatic, I naturally played the game and idea.
The nostalgia in Lost Records: Bloom & Fury is twofold. On the one hand, of course, part of the game—and much of what was shown in the demo—is set in 1995. ’90s and ’00s geeks: get ready to feel it. See.
I’m about a decade younger than the protagonist, Swan, but her teenage bedroom reminded me of my own childhood: posters for The X-Files, which featured Gillian Anderson, on the wall, and a handwritten Agent Scully fanfiction buried in a box under the bed; a mix of lurid horror novels and Regency romances on the bookshelves; a well-used handheld camcorder connected to the TV, surrounded by boxes of handwritten VHS tapes and earnest how-to books on filmmaking (Swan’s particular creative ambition).
I identified more deeply with Swann than I did with her surroundings. Dontnod admits that they don’t have a completely perfect record when it comes to authentically representing the diverse characters they portray, even if their heart is always in the right place.
However, in The Lost Records, two American female game writers, Desiree Sivry (Wylde Flowers) and Nina Freeman (Tacoma), served as narrative designers, working with the OG LIS trio, director Michelle Koch, producer Luc Bagadoost, and designer Baptiste Moissan. Sivry and Freeman’s Bloom and Fury, with an all-female quartet at its core, captures the real experiences of millennial teenage girls in the West.
Swann, Autumn, Nora, and Kate’s physical features are far from defining their personalities, but there is something about them that is less than ideal, especially as teenagers: overweight, acne-scarred, blemished, freckled, and underdeveloped, the four girls are a far cry from the voyeuristic fantasy of young women as perfect sexual objects who can only be looked at but not owned, which is reflected in many video game archetypes.
In other ways, the girls were unabashedly imperfect. They farted while proudly comparing their most horrific vomit stories; they made jokes about sex that were in good fun until someone said something a little too on-point and the situation suddenly became awkward; in other words, they interacted the way a group of teenage girls often do when there are no boys or adults around.
Best of all, Bloom & Rage originally consisted of two singers: Autumn, a passable singer, and Nora, who was awful at it. Games about aspiring musicians often showcase stadium-level performances, but it quickly becomes clear that’s not the Lost Records style. These girls weren’t really waiting for an outside agent to discover their talent, because they were already fully immersed in their own self-discovery. for Themselves.
As a former teenage girl, I’ve never seen a group of video game characters that I could so easily relate to from my youth. I was going to say that this move seemed aimed at so-called capital-letter gamers who hate seeing this kind of real-life representation in games, but I think that’s a dishonest assessment: I think it’s more accurate to say that this has nothing to do with them at all. This has to do with us, and I think, maybe, this time, it was conceived that way from the beginning.
But there’s another side to the story when it comes to Lost Records and nostalgia, and that’s the kind of nostalgia that Life is Strange fans will feel when playing this game. As you’d expect, Lost Records plays a lot like the LIS games: there are plenty of objects in the environment for Swann to interact with or comment on, and there are plenty of dialogue choices and optional interactions with other characters that keep an active flow of dialogue that Swann can participate in while playing other scenes.
There’s a lot of content in the game. I felt a little overwhelmed at times because I didn’t want to miss anything – but this higher level of interactivity also reflects an improvement on Life is Strange’s signature focus on protagonists with creative ambitions and abilities. Players have granular control over Swan’s filmmaking choices – which are obviously very relevant to the overall game’s plot – and can participate in Bloom & Rage’s music remixes. This is the most interactive version of an artistically inclined protagonist Dontnod has attempted, adding what is essentially a video editing mini-game that can be repeated infinitely and is very engrossing in its own right.
But what really struck me about this preview was Feel That’s absolutely true. As someone who has experienced a certain indescribable joy with every new LIS-related game I’ve played – more or less echoing the enchantment I felt on my first visit to Arcadia Bay, with its dreamy Americana watercolors – I can confirm that Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is a perfect showcase for Dontnod’s talent for creating a world that feels both perfectly peaceful and quietly happy, yet uncompromising in showing off its sinister side.
I haven’t even touched on the modern-day portions of the game; to be fair, they weren’t the focus of this preview build, though there were a few brief scenes featuring middle-aged Swann and Autumn reuniting after years of separation. This demo focused mostly on the younger characters and their once-ordinary lives, revealing very little about the bizarre events around which the entire central plot revolves.
But that’s okay; what I’ve seen so far impresses me is that Dontnod really hasn’t lost the inspiration that made Life is Strange in the first place, and has really used all the available budget, technology, and experience in the ensuing decade to kickstart a new series that promises to delight their old fans. I really can’t wait to see more.
The Lost Records: Bloom and Rage is expected to be released in two parts in early 2025 and will be available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. This preview was played on PC.
