Last year, the independently developed, episodic game Life is Strange blindsided players and reviewers. Receiving not only praise, the game went on to garner a ton of all around critical acclaim, and continue to collect a loyal fan base. Players were hopeful that between the combo of successful sales and popular demand would bring about a sequel to the gripping, time-hopping narrative.
Meanwhile, France based indie developers at Dontnod have other plans. The developers plan to make their next game about Jonathan Reid former military doctor and vampire–thus the game’s title Vampyr–that will take place in 1918 in London, during the Spanish Flu epidemic just after the first World War.
Some fans, however, were not as excited by this idea as other, wanting instead a direct sequel to their previous game. LiS fan Scott Ashby took to Kickstarter to make his sequel desires come true.
Currently Dontnod has no plans to do a sequel, and is working on a totally different game. They have said publicly that if they were to do another game like this, they would go with totally different characters and setting. The theory is that there is no where else to go with the story of Max and Chloe
The asking price? $20,000.
If successful, the initial plan was to approach Dontnod with the funds to jump start a new LiS game. If not, the backup plan was to approach another developer with the idea plus the money.
Pledge incentives offered up were:
- $50: a copy of the new game.
- $1000: contributors get to write a character’s backstory.
- a second contribution of $1000: contributors get to provide the voice acting for their character.
And much like the tale of Episode Devin with Star Wars, this project was similarly shut down because it became “the subject of an intellectual property dispute” which remains slightly unsurprising. Some are pointing fingers at titan publisher Square Enix for pulling the plug. However, what we have to remember is that Life is Strange is property of Dontnod and Square; if they choose to take legal action against another party for attempting to make profit off it, they have the right to intervene.
Life is Strange remains a profoundly beautiful game many people enjoyed, and we can definitely look forward to more great work from Dontnod in the future with their next game, Vampyr.