GameCentral talks to the creators of Life Is Strange and Vampyr about their ambitious new thriller and the difficulty of making realistic games.
French developer Dontnod have quietly become one of the most interesting developers working today. Although their first game, Remember Me, made little impact they had a surprise hit with Life Is Strange, whose sequel is due to start later this month. But they followed that up with the entirely unrelated action role-player Vampyr. All of the games are very different, with the only similarity being strong-storytelling and a branching narrative. Twin Mirror is more reminiscent of their other titles, but its also perhaps their most daring so far.
Twin Mirror was first announced at Gamescom last month, when we got a chance to speak to senior producer Fabrice Cambounet, narrative producer Hélène Henry, and American writer Matthew Ritter. We were also able to play a segment from the first episode of the game, entitled Lost On Arrival, which introduces main character Sam and the key gameplay mechanics.
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Sam has just returned to his hometown in West Virginia, following the death of a friend. The demo didnt offer much more context than that, which didnt matter as Sam had a more immediate problem: hes woken up with a hangover and someone elses blood over his shirt, with no memory of how it got there.
Theres also the small matter of a preppy-looking doppelganger who appears seemingly by magic to taunt Sam. This, apparently, is not a new occurrence and although its not obvious in the demo we later learn from Dontnod that theres nothing supernatural about The Double, but rather hes a manifestation of the nastier side of Sams personality that only he can see and hear.
The games main gameplay mechanic also seems fantastical at first, although again theres not supposed to be anything magical about it. Sam is able to construct a mind palace, as seen in Sherlock and various other detective shows, that allows him to reconstruct memories and examine and reinterpret information.
In this case he recreates a vision of his hotel room and by interacting with both the mind palace version and the real thing is able to trigger various memories. Some are real and some are not but by deducing which is which hes able to work out what happened and make a decision on how to deal with it.
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A busy trade show is not the best venue to enjoy such a game, so were not yet convinced the game has cracked the inherent problems – as discussed in our interview – of making a detective game but its certainly an interesting take on the problem.
In some ways Twin Mirror seems like an amalgamation of elements from all Dontnods previous games, including Remember Me. That automatically has us interested, even though at this point we dont know much about the overarching story or where its going. Although in a way thats all part of the appeal…
Formats: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC
Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment
Developer: Dontnod Entertainment
Release Date: 2019
GC: Before we start… how many studios does Dontnod actually have? Are you all based in France?
FC: Yeah, were all in France! All in all, I think the teams are probably about 150 people.
GC: Okay, well thats a lot.
FC: Its a lot, yes. The team on the project for Twin Mirror was about 40.
GC: So how do you organise yourself into teams? Do people just pitch ideas as they come up with them?
FC: Yes, its more or less like that. The starting point has to be the story, how you want to tell it, and then its then how you build up the team around that.
GC: On the one hand theres not much connective tissue between your different games, except for strong storytelling, but I somehow get the feeling youd never make a multiplayer shooter or something like that?
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HH: I guess were very lucky at Dontnod to have several teams dedicated to narration, but that is always our focus…
MR: …That the games should be story first.
GC: Thats a big decision though, to make that the priority for every game.
MR: And of course, when we eventually come out with a shooter in five years dont look back and say, Ah, they lied!
HH: [laughs]
GC: Were talking current policy.
MR: Yes!
GC: So is there common technology between the games, because one of the things I loved about Life Is Strange is the branching narrative. Is that like a game engine that all your games can use?
FC: Not actually. It really depends on the ambition of the gameplay, the changes that you want to do, and for Twin Mirror we decided we wanted to be be more flexible, in terms of content, so we havent done a really complex engine and we didnt use anything done by the other teams. So we can really focus more on the writing and less on the scenes or the characters. It matters more for us how we build the team and the schedule and how it will end up for the players.
HH: I guess at the beginning of everything we ask what is the project? What do you want to say? And based on that we decide about the graphics, the art direction – everything will be soaked up and worked on so that it fits with what we want to say.
GC: How did Twin Mirror work in that sense? How did the concept first emerge?
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HH: We were really interested in making a thriller, a psychological thriller. Twin Mirror is not a detective game. Its not about action or guns or anything like that, although there are some of those elements in the story. We were really interested in having a story and setting that is rooted in reality. And thats something that is very different to most other games, but its what we thought would be most interesting.
GC: In the presentation yesterday it was strongly implied that youve been watching Black Mirror…
MR: [laughs]
GC: That show is based around very specific plot ideas, so is that how Twin Mirror worked or was it more a general concept and movie genre you wanted to explore?
MR: Well, first this was before my time on the game.
GC: Ive already forgotten all your job titles, so I was just trying to look vaguely at no one in particular as I asked that.
All: [laughs]
MR: Apparently, first came the idea of the mind palace, and then what could that mean being inside someones head and watching that. And the idea of a kind of detective story evolved out of that and then once that was decided then we needed a plot. And we wanted the game to be plot first. Not the plot to service the detective bits and the gameplay, but the gameplay and the detective bits to service the plot.
GC: Games do attempt detective gameplay occasionally, but it never really works because the games are never brave enough to let you get stuck. Is that why you went with this quite oblique approach?
MR: I think that really good detective work could be done in video games, and you could make a video game thats all about the detective work and it can be fabulous. But that said, thats not 100% what were going for. But I definitely think its possible.
GC: Its obvious youve thought about the problem, so I wonder whether you came to the conclusion that it cant be done in a more straightforward way and so youve gone for this approach instead.
MR: I do think theres a couple of games that have gotten close, and theres a couple of Sherlock Holmes titles where Ive been like, Oh, this is really interesting! Theres some really interesting things that theyre doing there. I dont know if its ever been done 100% right yet, but when it happens I want to play that game! Because thats gonna be a fabulous game. But yeah, its very hard, cause either you have no idea what youre doing or theyre giving you everything…
GC: Or you get that bit in Ace Attorney where you know what the answer is but the game wont let you prove it.
MR: Oh yeah, that is so frustrating! I liked… its the game the guy who did Papers, Please did afterwards on the ship. [Were not familiar with the game but we assume hes referring to Return Of The Obra Dinn – GC] That ones an interesting detective game, I think that one actually gets pretty close. It still sometimes has the, I dont know what Im doing! elements but I really liked playing it.
GC: Yeah, you realise youre happily solving all these puzzles but dont really have a clear idea of why or whats going on.
MR: Yeah, yeah!
GC: I dont know, maybe thats what its like for real detectives…
HH: [laughs]
GC: Perhaps Im misremembering things but the mind palace gameplay kind of reminded me of the memory sequences from Remember Me.
MR: Its my favourite Dontnod game, Remember Me. [To Henry] Im the writer, so I dont know how much I can speak on the gameplay.
HH: The thing is in the mind palace youre trying to understand what happened and find these very factual answers. But the memory scene is something more fantastical, where you get a chance to change what has happened before.
GC: I suppose its almost the opposite in some ways.
MR: Thats an interesting thing that youve noticed there. I dont know that any of us were necessarily thinking about that, but Im not saying youre wrong. Thats definitely an interesting observation.
GC: So… hang on, have you said whether this is episodic yet?
MR: Yes, yes it is.
GC: So it seems that this is the one game thats closest to Life Is Strange since youve started. Is that purposeful? Is this an attempt to create a Dontnod formula, or are the similarities more superficial?
MR: I think a thriller, like a psychological thriller, lends itself to an episodic story very well. Where you can have a cliffhanger and not necessarily get to know the answer for a little bit. I think it adds tension, and so when we decided to do a psychological thriller an episodic story seemed natural.
And as for the similarities to Life Is Strange, I think a lot of them are surface because this story is much more rooted in the real world. Theres no supernatural elements in this. The main character has a really good memory and the mind palace is a representation of that, and a gameplay representation. And, you know, The Double exists and its more of a representation of the arguments you have with yourself.
GC: Oh, so theres not even the question of whether any of this is supernatural?
MR: Theres no supernatural elements in this game. This game is about a normal guy who ends up in an extraordinary circumstance and he has to realise hes been floating through life and this is gonna force him to change, whether he wants to or not. This is very much a story about how you can never go home, and when you try it doesnt always work out for the best.
GC: So is the mind palace the only traditional gameplay element in the game?
HH: Lets say that the mind palace is really the main gameplay mechanic. The way you interact with it helps to tell the story and reflect the character, because we believe that game design should support the narration and the story. And in this case its something that worked with what we wanted to say. But mainly the gameplay is all about choices and discussions with other characters.
GC: It is quite a brave decision to not have any action or any supernatural elements, to have something that is just straight, real world story.
MR: Well, video games, because you can do anything, lend themselves to those kind of power fantasies and those kinds of supernatural abilities very well. But I dont think that means that games cant explore these grounded, realistic sorts of stories. And Im excited to be working on one that is doing that.
Its absolutely wonderful because although this is ground that has been trod very well in movies and TV shows, as you said, its rarely explored in games. And Im a huge fan of noir and this story is rooted very strongly in classic noir themes.
GC: I cant say I really got much of a film noir feel from the demo?
MR: Stories where two people are arguing in a room can be very tense because whats at stake is absolutely everything that means anything to them…
GC: If I can just end with a general Dontnod question, Im curious as to whether youd ever set a game in France. Because its so rare to have a game set anywhere other than America or a fictional location.
MR: I would love to work on and play a game set in France. I would be very excited to do that but…
HH: It has been done already. Remember Me was our first one.
GC: But it gave everyone American accents…
Both: [laughs]
MR: One of the problems is of course, because everyone watches Hollywood movies… thats not necessarily a problem but the American setting often translates well worldwide because everyones familiar with it.
GC: Thats true in general, but with Twin Mirror the look of The Double is very specifically American. Even the word preppy is not really used in British English and the outfit hes wearing… I think I know what it represents, but Im not 100% sure, whereas I imagine its very familiar in America. If youre going to use these references that are not well understood outside of America doesnt the main argument for the setting start to break down? I mean, is that look common in France as well?
FC: No, its not. Its very American.
MR: We definitely wanted the story, while also while being universal to feel like an American story. So it wasnt just floating in a nebulous smalltown USA. It should feel like a real place with real characters who grew up in real places. That was very important to us. But Im with you, I also want to see more stories that take place elsewhere. New York and Tokyo are not the only two cities that exist in the world.
GC: If I have to save New York from aliens again, Im just going to let them keep it!
All: [laughs]
HH: I really believe in this case that West Virginia is really something important to the story, its not only a backdrop.
GC: Im not criticising this game, or any game really. Its obvious why you do it and if it was a British developer, for example, theyd be doing exactly the same thing. But what do you think needs to happen to the games industry to make it commonplace for games to be set somewhere other than America or Japan?
HH: I guess one thing you would need is that you would have to have a story that means something in that context and that you cant say elsewhere. The location has to be fundamental to the story.
MR: I would definitely say, much like the preppy thing, if the next Dontnod game was going to be set in France I would love for it to be a story that could only be set in France. Otherwise, why is it there? Why is it not in a more general setting that everyone understands?
GC: Oddly Im reminded of Forza Horizon 4, which I just saw and it seemed like theyd taken all the roundabouts out so as to not confuse Americans. And that just seemed so pointless considering theyre one of the most distinctive things about driving in Britain.
MR: And it would take like two minutes for them to learn how to handle it. Theyre not that complicated. No, I know exactly what youre talking about.
GC: So many times even when a game has an interesting premise publishers still try to file it down into something more recognisable.
MR: The bigger the company is the more afraid it is of making a terrible blunder. So the more careful its going to be.
GC: Well Im glad to see you guys always taking a risk. Its been great to meet you all.
MR: Thank you!
HH: Yes, thank you!
FC: Thank you!
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