When Life Is Strange came out in 2015, it was following in the footsteps of many games before it, but the most apparent was those from Telltale, which at that time was on a hot streak of making adventure games with branching narratives and lots of dialogue choices. Don’t Nod made this format its own with Life Is Strange, spawning several sequels and spin-offs over the years to come, always focusing on young people caught up in tumultuous situations but gifted with mysterious supernatural abilities.
Nearly a decade after that debut, and after having developed and published many other types of games, Don’t Nod is returning to the type of experience that made it famous. Lost Records: Bloom and Rage is a third-person adventure game that is one part Stand By Me, one part I Know What You Did Last Summer, and totally exciting.
Lost Records, like the original Life Is Strange, focuses on teenage girls. Only this time, it’s not a pair of best friends like Max and Chloe, but a foursome of girls, including the protagonist, a newcomer to the group named Swann Holloway. Swann is an awkward, freckle-faced girl, probably 15 or so, who loves horror movies, fuzzy slippers, and her cat, Pumpkin. A two-hour preview build I played started me off in her bedroom, where she was arguing with her mom from a different floor of their house.
The year is 1995, and her room makes that abundantly clear, as it’s covered wall-to-wall in her period-appropriate obsessions–the way most young people are known to do in any era. Legally distinct X-Files pictures have been cut out from magazines and hung like posters, Lisa Frank-esque neon notepads are strewn about her desk, and VHS rentals are tucked into nearly every corner of the floor.
The game’s lo-fi soundtrack pulled me right back to being a ’90s kid myself, and though Swann has about a decade on me in years, it all felt authentic and nostalgic. I’m really excited to see we’re at a point where the 1990s are the new nostalgia-bait. I don’t mind taking that bait one bit, and Lost Records leans way into it.
It doesn’t seem as though Swann will have any supernatural powers, but in between choosing dialogue options and exploring a level to interact with a number of objects, she’s also equipped with a camcorder–the type that seemingly every family had growing up in that era. It’s this detail that has me especially excited for Lost Records.
With the camcorder, players jump into first-person and record Swann’s life with few limitations. Recording certain things will trigger memoirs, or bundles of scenes you can put together as home movies, which are then narrated by Swann. The grainy filter that ends up over each finished project is like a time machine for my eyes.
These home movies even use a player’s exact recordings rather than fill them in with footage that looks “close enough,” giving each player a chance to find their director’s eye in an engaging way that I already love as a gameplay mechanic. If you don’t love your first draft, you can go long on taping things and edit your videos on the fly in the memoirs menu.
As Swann and her three burgeoning besties headed off from band practice and trekked into the woods to make a music video for their after-school punk rock band, Bloom and Rage, the sunlight trickled through the flora and reminded me how pretty Unreal Engine 5’s lighting can be. This isn’t a Life is Strange game, but it looks a lot like one, except it would be the most gorgeous game in the series, without a doubt.
After several scenes are recorded, from the girls air-guitaring atop a small hill to even a close-up shot of deer poop, the girls ended their day watching the sunset at the edge of a not-entirely-safe lookout, their feet dangling over a cliff’s edge so that they may feel that unique sense of invincibility that comes with being a teen. It’s idyllic, but because this is Don’t Nod, you know it’s to be short-lived.
Back at their garage hangout, the girls are engrossed with what Swann’s created. Before they can even rewind to watch it a second time, the camcorder suddenly seems to take on a life of its own, skipping ahead to late-night footage that Swann hardly remembered. What was on the footage isn’t revealed in the demo, but it seemed to shock the girls. The demo ended abruptly at that point, leading me to wonder if there’s a supernatural element after all–even if, perhaps, Swann isn’t the one with such powers.
A framing device set in the modern day breaks up the flashbacks throughout the demo, and offers a bit more insight. In a bar as adults, Swann and Autumn speak with concerned voices about a strange package they received that is addressed to their band and decorated with knowing threats, like “I remember” and “I was there.” It seems the girls got up to something that summer that they don’t want getting out into the public, and now their past has come back to haunt them while it simultaneously teases me with the details just out of reach.
I can’t wait to play more of Lost Records. The mix of ’90s nostalgia with classic Don’t Nod adventure game elements and the new camcorder mechanics makes for a story-driven game that I’ll be thinking about until I can get behind the camera again.
Lost Records: Bloom and Rage was previously set to launch this fall, but it was pushed back to give Life is Strange: Double Exposure some breathing room when it launches this October. As of now, Lost Records: Bloom and Rage is scheduled for early 2025 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.
