Lost Records Bloom & Rage, from the creators of Life is Strange, involves "blending reality, dreams, and the weirdness of the unknown"

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage
(Image credit: Don't Nod)

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is a new story-driven adventure from the creators of Life is Strange. That statement alone is enough to get me excited, but when you add its tantalizing premise and setting into the mix, Bloom & Rage has become one of my most anticipated new games for 2024. As the reveal trailer teased during the Game Awards in December last year, we'll be going on a journey through time as we explore the story of Swann, Nora, Autumn, and Kat. For the four highschool friends, the summer of 1995 is said to be "one of self-discovery and forging unbreakable bonds", but as we see, the carefree antics of the group quickly take a turn, with flashes of a fire, and a mysterious purple glow coming from an unknown source. 

Whatever happens that summer is enough to make the four friends promise to never speak again. But after 27 years of no contact, they're brought back together. With many questions hanging in the air, I can't wait to delve into what promises to be one very intriguing story-driven experience. One that, as creative director Michel Koch explains, will be the first game in a new universe that will set the scene for future stories. 

"We are working on this first game as the foundation for a possibly larger universe. We are creating our characters and their stories for this game, but also while thinking of the possibilities to tell future stories with them, or other stories with the locations and the same game world," says Koch. "Bloom & Rage will be a full game with full story beats and a complete story, but with Jean-Luc Cano (writer) we're laying the seeds of what could come after, we have a lot of ideas and possible leads to where we want to go and this is extremely liberating and creatively exciting!" 

Magical realism 

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage

(Image credit: Don't Nod)

The new Lost Records universe is "brimming with magical realism", which Don't Nod is no stranger to. Both Life is Strange and Life is Strange 2 explored different real world issues, but did so with an undercurrent of the supernatural. We don't yet know how this magical side will play out in Bloom & Rage, but Koch points to the term "liminal fantasy to describe the kind of fantasy they are infusing into Lost Records."

"It involves blending reality, dreams, and the weirdness of the unknown," Koch says. "There is this peculiar dreamy and atmospheric experience we're trying to reach and we hope will keep the players lured in the Lost Records world like in a liminal space, both fascinated and unsettled."

Big in 2024

Big in 2024: GamesRadar+ preview of the biggest games of the year

(Image credit: Future)

GamesRadar+ is exploring the most anticipated video games of the year with Big in 2024, with new articles dropping every day throughout January

With both Cano and Koch growing up in the 90s, their imaginary worlds have drawn inspiration from various sources. The time apart being 27 years in Bloom & Rage is a nod to Stephen King's It, for example, with Koch listing other influences such as The Twilight Zone, X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Twin Peaks. 

"I think that's why, like when we crafted Life is Strange 1 for the first time, Jean-Luc and I strongly believe that adding a layer of magical realism, supernatural, or fantasy to a story is the best way to enhance emotions, human reactions, and create a twist that increases the stakes," Koch says. "It allows us as creators to delve deeper into our characters and immerse the audience in a world where anything is possible." 

Characters and connections

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage

(Image credit: Don't Nod)

"We've really pushed this love for characters even more in this game, pushing more of the interactivity, the relationships, the whole story, around our main cast of characters."

Michel Koch, creative director

In a world where anything is possible, Bloom & Rage will still put a focus on its characters. With the team applying a wealth of experience gained during the development of LiS 1 and 2 for aspects such as worldbuilding, interactive storytelling, and player agency, Koch says what they learned about the importance of character development and how best to create attachments to characters is something they're applying to Bloom & Rage: "We've really pushed this love for characters even more in this game, pushing more of the interactivity, the relationships, the whole story, around our main cast of characters." 

Writing the story at the beginning of the pandemic, "in a time period where we were not about to see our friends anymore", also gave rise to a desire to create a story about connections, friendship, and how we reconnect with long lost friends. And while Bloom & Rage does "share common DNA" with Don't Nod's previous games, it promises to deliver something unique thanks to the group dynamics of the four friends when it arrives in late 2024 on PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5. 

"Their interactions together, their relationships, how close they are to each other will be at the center of the game's interactivity," Koch says. "The notion of group dynamics is one of the main themes of the game. We really want our players to experience what it is to find their place within a group of friends, and to see if being part of a group can make someone stronger or, in the opposite, pushes them to go against their own beliefs." 



GamesRadar+ is exploring the most anticipated video games of the year with Big in 2024, with new articles dropping every day throughout January. 

Heather Wald
Senior staff writer

I started out writing for the games section of a student-run website as an undergrad, and continued to write about games in my free time during retail and temp jobs for a number of years. Eventually, I earned an MA in magazine journalism at Cardiff University, and soon after got my first official role in the industry as a content editor for Stuff magazine. After writing about all things tech and games-related, I then did a brief stint as a freelancer before I landed my role as a staff writer here at GamesRadar+. Now I get to write features, previews, and reviews, and when I'm not doing that, you can usually find me lost in any one of the Dragon Age or Mass Effect games, tucking into another delightful indie, or drinking far too much tea for my own good. 

Read more
Lost Records: Bloom and Rage
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is bringing Don't Nod back to its Life is Strange roots, and nothing could excite me more
Screenshots of Lost Records: Bloom and Rage, one of GamesRadar+'s Big in 2025 games
From what we've seen so far, it would be a bad idea to sleep on Don't Nod's Lost Records: Bloom & Rage
Swann, Autumn, Kat, and Nora jam out in the garage while filming themselves in Lost Records: Bloom and Rage
Lost Records: Bloom and Rage – Tape 1 review: "This Life is Strange successor is Stephen King, Blair Witch, and Yellowjackets all rolled into one – delicious"
Lost Records: Bloom and Rage
Life is Strange director says Don't Nod returned to its episodic roots in Lost Records because he's not "invested" in Netflix's binge model
Split Fiction screenshot of Mio looking at mysterious purple sparks in a fantasy world with Zoe in the background
Split Fiction is now my most anticipated game of 2025 and proves Hazelight continues to be the most inventive studio out there when it comes to co-op adventures
Cloned versions of the same person arguing with themselves in The Alters
The Alters is a "journey of discovery" that will have you asking one of life's biggest questions in 2025
Latest in Adventure
an ai chatbot plays a modded verion of pokemon red and jumps down a ledge to talk to an npc
An AI's mission to 'teach' itself Pokemon Red is going as well as you think - after escaping Cerulean City after tens of hours, it went right on back
Pokemon Legends Z-A screenshot showing Mega Charizard
Pokemon Legends Z-A's visuals aren't "great" say former Nintendo marketing leads, but hope Switch 2 could allow Game Freak to "go back to the drawing board" and add more detail to future RPGs
Screenshot of Herdling, showing the weird yaks heading toward a sunset horizon.
With 18,000 glowing Steam reviews on their lovely debut game, this indie team's game about leading cute fantasy yaks up a mountain is instantly one to watch
The two characters in Split Fiction holding their hands up in surrender in a futuristic city
Split Fiction, the new game from the It Takes Two devs, launches to Overwhelmingly Positive reviews on Steam and is the highest rated game on Metacritic this year
Exploring and fighting in Blades of Fire
Blades of Fire plays like a lost Xbox 360-era mashup between God of War and Soulslikes, and it's coming from the studio behind Metroid Dread
Pokemon Legends: Z-A screenshot
Pokemon Legends: Z-A looks to finally bring my anime-inspired dreams of truly active combat to life
Latest in Features
The Punisher holding two machine guns in the rain
Daredevil: Born Again - Learn the bullet-riddled comic book history of the Punisher before he officially joins the MCU
A woman in a underwater machine waving during the cinematic teaser for Subnautica 2.
Subnautica 2: Everything we know about the new underwater survival game
The AMD Ryzen 7 8700G being held above a motherboard by a reviewer
AMD's pro-consumer 9070 strategies are exactly why it's primed to dominate the CPU market in 2025
Assassin's Creed Shadows cinematic screenshot
Assassin's Creed Shadows' transmog looks set to combine the best of Odyssey and Vahalla to make changing my drip easier than ever
Split Fiction screenshot of Zoe and Mio in a fantasy world
Split Fiction feels like a Mass Effect-meets-Fable platformer and I'm obsessed with it after just one hour
Monster Hunter Wilds characters share a meal
Oh no, Monster Hunter Wilds is so good that I'm already counting the days until its inevitable Master Rank expansion