Like its two previous Life is Strange titles, Lost Records uses teenage lives as a way to examine societal ills and societal politics, this time taking us back to the heady days of 1995 as protagonist Swann befriends the cool outcast weirdos in town. The framing device surrounding the demo we played is that after almost 30 years of no contact, Swann, Nora, Autumn, and Kat have agreed to meet in a bar, worried about how a mysterious package may upend their adult lives as they try to figure out just why they promised to all go their separate ways almost 30 years ago.
The most interesting thing about Lost Records is the killer Richard Linklater-esque capturing of the vibe of an era. The team at DON'T NOD has played with what our memories of childhood actually hold on to work around a lot of rights and IP issues and create something that feels like a distant foggy memory as much as it does a recreation of a time and place. At Gamescom, creative director Michael Koch told us how the team was working around legal issues, explaining that: "The game is really anchored in the 90s, so we really wanted it to feel authentic. That's why we can mention real names, real movies, real bands, but when it comes to visuals [and] branding, of course, we have to create our own branding." The way this manifests in the game is fascinating. Characters like the film-obsessed Swann will mention The Rocky Horror Picture Show or will ask her friends if they have seen Interview with the Vampire, but the posters on her walls will be for faux-films like "Reservoir Cats" or "Primal Preserve" — all with just legally distinct enough artwork riffing off their inspirations.
This original score is being headlined with vocals by Ruth Radelet, ex-lead singer for Chromatics, and the original score is being composed by Nora Kelly. However, there will also be plenty of much less polished diegetic music created by the teens and Koch described to us how "you can influence the lyrics of the song and you'll see... the [band members] in the game come up with the song little by little". This could be seen in our demo, where shortly after Swann called over to Nora's garage to hang out, the girls convinced her to give them a beat on their electronic drum. In this sequence, we were given control of Swann as she added different elements to the beat. It obviously came out a little ramshackle sounding by the time Autumn and Nora started playing and singing but it was also meant to and it was pretty endearing to watch these amateur artists messily throw music together.
Something that this scene also highlighted was Bloom and Rage's near-obsessive recreation of tactile objects. VHS cases can be opened and are usually storing guitar picks or weed instead of tapes. A Moo Box is tossed aside in the garage but obviously has too much sentimental value to throw out. And of course, Swann's beloved camcorder feels like a chunky relic with its sticky buttons. All these objects rattle, click, and strain when interacted with (or even moo when rotated upside down).
It was at this point I explained to the developers in the room that I was born in the year 2000. This made the game's producer, Cathay Vincelli, feel so old she let out a little audible "oof", but it raised a valid question. When writing a game starring young people that will inevitably be played by young people, and your team is no longer 15 years old, how do you go about creating authentic teens and not just embarrassing stereotypes and cliches? What's more, how do you strike the balance of recreating teenagers from 1995, with characters that can still be relatable to teenagers in 2024?
Koch explained that he, Baghadoust, and Vincelli all would have been teenagers in this era, which is why they brought on a younger writer, Nina Freeman (Tacoma and Cibele), and a New Jersey local, Desiree Cifre (Wylde Flowers) to — in Koch's words — "bring their own experiences... to the characters that will feel real for the 90s but also will resonate with younger players".
Baghadoust told us that the lack of comparable 90s throwbacks was actually a boon for the team. "I think that's more exciting [for us] to have the freedom to make it like like [we] want", he explained, how Stranger Things isn't a 100 per cent accurate recreation of the 80s but is more about capturing how that generation and how society remembers that era being. Koch added to this by saying: "I think that's what we're trying to do. We don't want to be a documentary about the 90s. It's more about getting the vibe of it
. Especially since we're playing in memories of the characters, so we don't have to [be 100 per cent accurate]. The players that experienced the 90s should feel at home, and the players that never experienced it should find it interesting."
