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'Life is Strange’ studio's ‘Vampyr’ arrives this November
Life is Strange was one of my favorite games of last year. Putting players in a refreshingly normal college setting, it was an interactive experience built around the complexity of human relationships. Now, with its latest title Vampyr, developer Don't Nod has decided to go completely the other way, fully embracing the fantastical. A new trailer shows more of the studio's supernatural take on 1918 London, and also confirms a November release date on PS4, PC and Xbox One for the choice-based action game.
'Life is Strange' is getting its own digital series
The massively popular adventure game Life is Strange is getting its very own digital series, care of the minds behind Legendary Digital Studios and Square Enix.
'Vampyr' and the gender politics of 1918 London
Vampyr, the next game from Dontnod Entertainment features a white, male protagonist. For any other studio, this is de rigueur, something dictated by the gaming industry's presumed demographic. But for the team behind Life is Strange and Remember Me, it's the first time they've delved into the male mindset. And it wasn't the result of market research either: It's because Vampyr's story wouldn't have worked any other way.
Take a peek at 'Life is Strange' studio's next game, 'Vampyr'
Gaze into the darkness long enough and a reluctant British vampire will gaze back at you. Sure, that's not quite what Nietzsche said, but it's the angle Dontnod is taking with its latest game, Vampyr. Set in London in 1918, Vampyr stars Jonathan Reid, a military doctor who specialized in blood research during World War I. He's also a vampire, though he doesn't enjoy killing; he dedicated his life to healing, after all. The Spanish Flu is ravaging Europe and as Reid stalks London's foggy streets, he must balance his bloodlust with his still-intact moral compass.
Photo contest awards $10,000 for finding 'everyday heroes'
Attention class, it's time to get your submissions ready for Mr. Jefferson's "Everyday Heroes" photo contest. Well, not really, but Life is Strange publisher Square Enix is bringing the sweepstakes from its tale of a time-traveling teen into the real world. Unlike in the game, you aren't competing for a trip to San Francisco to showcase your work. Here you're vying for a $10,000 scholarship while you hopefully "discover and capture how normal people make the world a better place," as a post on the Square Enix blog puts it.
'Life is Strange' disc puts every episode in a tidy package
If you've been holding off on playing Life is Strange until there was a really cool, commemorative physical release, your wait's over. Developer Dontnod's episodic game about time-traveling high school girls hits retail today with a pretty snazzy limited edition packing an art book, the game's soundtrack (featuring both licensed and original songs) and all five installments for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The collector's edition will run you $40, while the vanilla version is priced $10 cheaper. But! If you're an Amazon Prime member, Jeff Bezos is knocking $8 off the special edition and reducing the standard version's price by $6. That only applies to console copies, though.
'Vampyr' casts you as a creature of the night with a conscience
Since we last heard about developer Dontnod's vampire role-playing game, Vampyr, set against the first World War, the studio released and wrapped the excellent episodic Life is Strange. But seeing as how that project has wrapped for now it's time to focus on the post-World-War-I tale of the macabre once more. Turns out that it's an action role-playing game focusing on makeshift weapons and the protagonist's newfound vampiric ways.
'Life is Strange' episode 4 enters a 'Dark Room' next week
Life is Strange is about to get dark. Well, darker than all of the surreal time travel, stormy nightmares, missing-person mysteries and straight-up death contained in the first three episodes. Episode four, Dark Room, hits Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Steam next Tuesday, July 28th. Life is Strange is partly a cinematic coming-of-age tale featuring Max -- a young girl who returns to her hometown to find her best friend vastly changed -- and partly a sci-fi mystery as Max realizes she can control time. She uses her power to get out of increasingly dangerous jams and in the search for a missing girl, Rachel Amber. According to the trailer for Dark Room, this one is going to be tense (spoiler warning for all three previous episodes).
JXE Streams: Things get wild in 'Life is Strange' ep. 3
Life is Strange is an emotive sort of time-travel tale, starring angsty teenagers, viral videos and friendships tested again and again. The game stars Max, a high school girl who returns to her hometown to find a lot of things have changed, including her former best friend, Chloe, who is now rebellious, cold and searching for a missing girl. Blackwell Academy, their school, is packed with political drama and ominous happenings, and the tepid Northeastern weather starts shifting in odd, extreme ways. Oh, and Max can reverse time. You know, normal high school things. We dive into Episode 3: Chaos Theory live at 3:30PM ET (12:30PM PT) right here, on Twitch.tv/Joystiq or on the Engaget Gaming homepage.
JXE Streams: Life gets weirder in 'Life is Strange Episode 2'
Last time we played Life is Strange here on JXE Streams, Jess Conditt learned some hard lessons about being a teenager. First off, it isn't easy to reconnect with old friends after a long silence. Second, bullies come in all shapes and sizes in the Pacific Northwest. Finally, discovering the ability to travel through time is awesome, stressful and seems to entail horrible visions of your hometown getting destroyed by inclement weather. A little older and a little wiser, we're ready to dive back into the adventure and puzzle solving of Dontnod's so-called life. Join us for Life is Strange Episode 2: Out of Time on today's stream and you might get a free Xbox One, PlayStation 4, or PC game out of it.
JXE Streams: Diving blind into 'Life is Strange' from 'Remember Me' studio
It makes sense to stream the debut episode of Life is Strange with only barebones information about the game -- after all, life itself is often a blind stumble through odd and surprising events. I'll go live, solo-style, with Life is Strange at 3PM ET today at twitch.tv/joystiq. This is poised to be a weird one, featuring a coming-of-age narrative and a sci-fi twist: The main character, Max, has the ability to stop and move through time at will. She returns to her hometown to find a mystery involving a missing girl and Max's own former best friend, who has grown colder and more reckless. Get ready for angst, teenage rebellion, friendship lost and regained, and crazy time travel. So far, developer DONTNOD (Remember Me) has emphasized both the sci-fi and emotional plot points equally. Life is Strange -- let's find out how strange together from 3PM - 5PM ET.
Find a way to watch Life is Strange's launch trailer
In Life is Strange you don't need a Cher button to turn back time. The $5 first episode of the teen drama is available now on Steam, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and it's on the way to PS4 and PS3 later today. For more on Dontnod's new joint, make some time for our preview. [Image: Square Enix]
The hows and whys of time manipulation in Life Is Strange
The latest footage from developer Dontnod's Life Is Strange offers a detailed look at how the game's central time manipulation gimmick is supposed to work, courtesy the developers that built the system in the first place. [Image: Square Enix]
Remember Me studio building vampiric WWI RPG
Remember Me and Life is Strange developer Dontnod is working on Vampyr, an action-RPG set just after World War I and starring a doctor who's also a vampire, The Sixth Axis reports. As the doctor, players must grapple with moral quandaries – to heal or to feed on your patients? – and the game's tagline is "Take blood. Save a life," the site reports. Focus Home Interactive is publishing. Dontnod announced the game during a Focus Home event today. There's no release date or confirmed platforms for Vampyr just yet. Dontnod is also working on the episodic, time-bending, emotional journey of Life is Strange, due to debut on January 30 for Xbox 360, PS3, Xbox One, PS4 and PC. We have a preview of that one here.
Life Is Strange PC specs
Developer Dontnod, who you may remember from the flawed yet ambitious Remember Me, has outlined the PC specs required to play Life Is Strange. Happily, you probably won't need to build a new computer to play the upcoming time-bending adventure. You'll find a full rundown of both minimum and recommended specs beyond the break, but the quick version is that if you have a modern dual core processor, video card built in the last half-decade and greater than 2GB of RAM, you should be fine. Alongside the system requirements list, Dontnod has also issued a lengthy developer diary that offers viewers an in-depth look at the time manipulation mechanics that serve as the key hook in Life Is Strange. You'll find that trailer beyond the break as well. The first episode of Life Is Strange will debut on January 30. [Image: Square Enix]
Time-bending teen drama Life is Strange debuts next month
The debut episode of the DONTNOD-developed Life is Strange arrives on January 30, 2015, Square Enix announced today. The publisher commemorated the news with a new trailer showing the game in action. To see how Remember Me studio DONTNOD is mixing emotional teenage drama with supernatural time manipulation, check out the video below the break. Life is Strange caught our eye at Gamescom this year, particularly in the way it presented a convincing glimpse of modern teenage life. As Joystiq's Jess Conditt put it, "Life is Strange presents two fully realized, genuine young women navigating adolescence, betrayal, love and loss. Chloe's pot-smoking and profanity-laced room feel honest to her character, as does her reception of Max. Anyone who's drifted apart from a teenage best friend can relate to the guarded, chilly reunion between these two girls, as well as the spark of envy that Max can display when she learns about Rachel, the new best – and perhaps better – friend."
Remember Me creative director: 'It was misunderstood'
Remember Me launched in June 2013 to mostly mediocre reviews. Our own critique called its animations "stilted and poorly portrayed," and found the overall experience disappointing. That following January, French developer DONTNOD entered "judicial reorganization," meaning the studio wasn't keeping up with its debts. "First of all, we're extremely proud of Remember Me," Creative Director Jean Maxime Moris told Joystiq at Gamescom. "I think it was not perfect by any means, but to some level it was misunderstood. It was our first game. We got totally buried under the hype for a very big game that came out directly after. These are not excuses because it was not perfect, it had flaws. But people are still writing about it today. Every once in a while we see a piece popping up and people actually showing the game some love."
Life is Strange: Ambiguous young love among leading ladies
Life is Strange is DONTNOD's second game ever – it's also the studio's second game starring a woman, following 2013's Remember Me. "That's not us trying to be different for the sake of being different," Creative Director Jean-Maxime Moris said during a demo at Gamescom. "It's not as if we're trying to 'fix the industry.'" And Life is Strange is so much more than "a game with a girl in it."
Remember Me dev Dontnod working with Square Enix
Develop reported today that Dontnod Entertainment, the French development studio behind Remember Me, is collaborating with Square Enix on a new title that will be a "twist on traditional story-driven games." You may remember Dontnod as the studio that entered "judicial reorganization" not long after Remember Me failed to live up to its premise - and sales - earlier this year. At the time of the reorganization, Dontnod CEO Oskar Guilbert told GamesIndustry International that the company had "started new projects" which needed investment. Develop also reported that Dontnod wasn't ready to share details regarding the game just yet. But see, there's this ... thing going on next week at the Los Angeles convention center, so it may not be long before we have some solid info to go on. [Image: Capcom]
Remember Me dev Dontnod enters 'judicial reorganization' following financial struggles
Remember Me developer Dontnod Entertainment is in financial mire, but CEO Oskar Guilbert claims the company isn't on the brink of bankruptcy. Speaking to GI.biz, Guilbert dismissed reports coming out of France today that the Parisian company is in fatal trouble after it entered "judicial reorganization" this week. "We started new projects and those new projects need some investment and we decided to resize the company in order to match these new needs. That's why we needed judicial reorganization," Guilbert asserted to GI.Biz today. "I cannot say that we have no financial difficulties, we have some, but I think that now they are behind us, not in front of us." Judicial reorganization or redressement judiciaire is a similar process to receivership, where the French courts appoint an administrator to oversee a company's restructuring when it has troubles paying its debts. The process can be drawn out over many months, but it's often a precursor to liquidation. Guilbert says Dontnod is in "close negotiations with one big partner," presumably to take over, and in "very close negotiations for our next project with one of the top publishers." Despite being published by Capcom, Remember Me was a game that struggled to live up to its name, both critically and seemingly at retail; Capcom failed to even note the game in its financial brief for the quarter following its release last summer. In March 2013, Dontnod received 200,000 euros from France's National Center of Cinematography, apparently for a separate project denoted as "What if?" – here's hoping that isn't an ominous name too.
