No stranger to having a female lead in their game, Life is Strange developer Dontnod made headlines over the weekend when they revealed that most other publishers wanted a male lead in their new game, with Square Enix pretty much the only one who didn’t want to change anything.
Speaking to Videogamer recently, Creative Director Jean-Maxime Moris said that he’d be “happy if playing the game changes one person’s mind, especially in the publishing world where they can be reluctant to publish games that have female protagonists, then that’s good.”
However, Moris does see the issue with female leads in a video game as a “small part of a much bigger and universal issue, which is gender equality. Of course we can do little things in our community, but the bigger change has to come from the top, I think.”
In a separate interview with VG247, Moris talked about how this episodic adventure game fits in with other recent titles in the genre:
This is definitely a game for the Telltale and Heavy Rain fans. We are putting a lot of effort into crafting a slower-paced game that again really emphasizes choice, story and character development.
Just like The Walking Dead, the consequences of your choices in an episode will carry forward into the following ones, making your experience customized to your playstyle. While Dontnod “will cram a lot of details into every cutscene and line of dialog that will make every play through feel very unique,” you should only expect a few different endings.
After talking about how Life is Strange focuses more on choice, story, and character development rather than traditional puzzle mechanics, Morin replied to the comparisons with Gone Home:
Gone Home definitely touches upon some of the themes that we explore and was an outstanding, unique experience that we feel honored to be compared to. We are obviously bringing a lot of new stuff to the table, including the rewind mechanic, a unique art style and storyline. We are actually aiming for a spot that is in between the indie and AAA games.
Life is Strange: Episode 1 releases on January 30 for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC.
[Source: Videogamer, VG247]
