Michel Koch + Raoul Barbet – Life is Strange

Few games gripped me last year—or in the last handful of years–as Dontnot Entertainment’s episodic adventure game Life is Strange. Like many others out there, I fell in love with the game’s protagonist Max Caulfield, her wild child best friend Chloe Price, their hometown of Arcadia Bay, and all of the other people we’re introduced to there.  Life is Strange mixed the trials of being a teen with unexplained superpowers, all wrapped up into an experience that forced players to make choices where there often wasn’t a “right” path to take.

In the past week, two different but important pieces of news came out about the game: that it’s first piece, Episode One, would be offered for free on all platforms, and that it would serve as inspiration for a new live-action digital series. In honor of the announcements, I had the chance to spend a short time talking to Life is Strange‘s co-directors, Michel Koch and Raoul Barbet from Dontnod.

Mollie: Life is Strange came out to both critical and fan acclaim, and was my top pick for the best game of 2015, so I’m curious how it feels as part of the development team to see the reactions the game received and the fanbase it still has.

Michel Koch: It’s quite fantastic. We have to admit, when we began the project, we didn’t quite expect what’s happened. Seeing how active the community still is these days, working on art, drawings, cosplay, sending us messages every day, it’s really fantastic. We wanted to talk about what it’s like to be a teenager these days in Life is Strange, and tell the story of Max. To see that the story has resinated for so many players is quite fantastic for us.

Mollie: Square Enix announced last week that the first episode of Life is Strange will be permanently free on all platforms. Why make that move at this point, after both the digital and physical versions of the game have come out?

Michel: We think it’s still good timing. We know we’ve reached a big audience with the game, but we also still know that there are players who haven’t tried the game yet, who maybe heard about it but were unsure if it’d be for them. We think it’s a great way to reach a bigger audience and try to bring Life is Strange to more players. We had a demo before, which was the first 15 minutes or so, but now all of the first episode—with two to three hours of gameplay—will be free. We are extremely eager to see new players come in and help expand the reach of Life is Strange, and maybe be drawn in enough to want to play the rest of the season. Also, maybe some fans will now then tell their friends that they can play the first episode for free, and maybe those players who have been resistant to just buying the game without trying it will try it now. We think it’s a good moment to try this. We might have reached the total number of players who knew for sure that they wanted to play Life is Strange, so we can now open it up to a broader audience.

Raoul Barbet: We wanted to create a different game from other things out there with certain aspects. If you really want to feel what we wanted to achieve in Life is Strange, with the music, and pacing, and its slice-of-life style story, it’s important to be able to play one full episode. So I think it’s a unique possibility to be able to give the first episode for free, and we’re quite happy at the idea of reaching, like Michel said, new players.

Mollie: As someone who loved Life is Strange, one concern I do have is if the first episode stands as a strong enough introduction to the game. Having played all five episodes, I think it isn’t until the second when you start to really become invested in the story. Do you think the first episode can stand on its own that’ll be able to pull in new players?

Michel: That’s a very good question, and a good point. Personally, I would give the whole season for free. [laughs] But, I don’t think Square Enix would be happy about that. When we began the project, and were putting together the first episode, we had a lot of things to figure out. It was the first time we had to design the game’s puzzles, the first time we had to think about the evolution of the characters, and so on. So, it was quite hard to do that episode. Personally I don’t think it’s the best episode of the game, but I think it’s for sure a good introduction. But you’re right, it takes time to become completely involved in this story, and  its characters, but I think this will be a good start. If you manage to finish Episode One, you’ll have a better feeling of what it’s like to play Life is Strange.

Raoul: To counter-balance what Michel said a bit, I think we purposefully wanted to make this episode softer and slower, focusing more on the introduction to the world of Max and Chloe. You get a bit of a taste of what’s to come at the end of the episode, and it does start getting darker by that point. And it was maybe a challenge, a risk that we took to have a different tone over the course of the different episodes, to end up with something quite dark by the end. But it was also a great contrast, and great to surprise the player about what happens in the next episode. So, maybe sometimes, some players might think the first episode is a bit slow, and maybe there’s no big cliffhanger at the end, but there are a lot of strong themes in what happens in it, and we think it’s enough to catch the attention of the player. So, hopefully, they’ll want to continue. Sure, it’s not that huge cliffhanger like you have at the end of episodes three or four, but still, it was really the mood and feeling that we wanted to create in order to contrast later with the darker nature of the adult world versus the teenage world of Max.

Mollie: There are so many choices that players must make in Life is Strange that can cause divided opinions, or emotional stress, or legitimate anxiety, and I remember coming at one—the decision to either pick up Kate’s call in the cafe or avoid it—where 100% of my friends didn’t answer, but I couldn’t imagine making that choice. How do you come at those choices as someone who created those situations?

Michel: That part is interesting when you’re creating the game, and working on the story, and everything. You have to sometimes try to get out of your mind as the creator, and try to put yourself into the mind of the player, to see how people would react to the choice you’re presenting them, or the situation. That’s also why we do play tests when we work on our games, to sometimes see the genuine reactions from players—because, as game designers or creators, we are sometimes not completely fresh in our reactions.

Mollie: It’s been interesting for me to watch YouTube reactions of certain moments of the game, especially the ending, to see people react to those same moments that I reacted to, and the thought process they had in why they made certain choices versus others compared to what I did and why. When you mention trying to get into the mindset of players, have you spent any time watching videos like that?

Michel: Yeah, that’s what’s amazing. We watched a lot of playthroughs with the team. It’s sometimes amazing to see the reactions of the players and all of the different reactions they have. It’s great, because we see that we managed, for a lot of choices, to make some very polarizing decisions, where players act differently based on their morality, their approach of their own lives and personalities, but also based on how they played the beginning of the game, and the version of Max they created in their head. That’s why I think, for the final choice, even if there is not a lot of variations based on what you did before that choice, the moment of that last choice is based on how you played your entire game mentally and emotionally, and this is what allows you to make that difficult final choice.

Mollie: Now that the team is busy working on your next project, going back now to think about Life is Strange again thanks to these new announcements, are there any feelings in you wishing that you could fix or change this or that in the game, maybe do something differently? Or are you happy with how Life is Strange turned out?

Raoul: I think, like on every project, we had some constraints, and we had to work with them. I think in the end, though, those limitations pushed us to come up with some good ideas and solutions. You always wish you had more time to figure out certain things, or to make particular scenes better, but I’m quite happy with how things turned out. Though, I would give my past clone some advice on how development would go. [laughs]

Michel: We could always change and polish and try to adjust and do things better, but in the end, I think we managed to create a story about two characters that we like—that we love. I think it’s the game that we wanted to do, and it’s not perfect, but there always comes a point when you need to stop and tell yourself to finish it up and move forward. That’s basically what Max learns at the end of the game.

Mollie: So, I have to ask. Michel, you’re using a piece of Pricefield art—the term fans use for romantically shipping Max and Chloe—as your twitter icon. There are two very dedicated camps in who Max should end up with, so does your icon mean that you’ve made your choice?

Michel: [laughs] It’s been really cool to look at all the posts of the social networks, and see all of those debates, and the passion that the community has about the character relationships, about what they think is canon for them or not. To be fair, I have also used an avatar with Max and Warren [Graham] in it before.

Mollie: Booooo. [laughs]

Michel: [laughs]

It didn’t stay nearly as long as the one with Max and Chloe, I have to admit. And, I know that the Pricefield team is bigger and stronger than Grahamfield. To be clear, there is no canon version of the story—what the player wants to do with it is fine. Like, the way people are talking on Twitter, you can be “Bae over Bay,” or whichever choice you want. [laughs] It’s just awesome to see the community is so active and such fans of the game, and it’s great to interact with them and be a part of that community.

Mollie: So, of course, even bigger than the announcement of Episode One going free is that there’s a live-action digital series based on Life is Strange in the works. I guess my first question is also the simplest: Why?

Michel: There was recent news that Square Enix was in talks with various production companies, I think a few months ago. After the success of the game, production companies started hearing about Life is Strange and found that it had great stories and characters. So, a few of those studios approached Square Enix, and the deal has now been signed with Legendary Digital Studios, which is quite exciting, because it’ll be a new way for another kind of audience to learn about these characters, this story, this setting—and, also, maybe want to play the game after that. So, we’re really excited to see how things will turn out. It’s really the beginning of the creative process right now, and we don’t know yet exactly how it all will happen. We aren’t quite sure how they’ll want to approach it, but we do know that there’s a lot of great possibilities, because you’ve got the right material and characters there to build a great digital series off of. It’ll be a chance to expand the universe in a different way, and to have another kind of storytelling  to bring those characters to another audience.

Mollie: As members of the team, while they’re no decisions yet, do you think it’d be more interesting to tell a story with characters like Max and Chloe and others we already know, or would it be better to focus on other characters and stories we haven’t experienced yet?

Michel: Hmm, that’s a really good question. I think, speaking for myself, that every possibility can be really interesting—depending on the way they’re approaching the writing process. How you do things in a TV show is different than a game. For example, if Max is the main character of a series, you could also see other offscreen moments for other characters, where as in the game, you’re always controlling Max, and focusing on what she’s experiencing. So, the digital series gives the chance to show other parts of the world and other characters. It could be great to maybe even switch and tell the story from the point of view of Chloe—that could be awesome. I don’t want to think too much about what I’d prefer, because there are a lot of talented people who will be able to take a creative look at the material, the universe, and the characters, and I’m really excited to see what they’ll propose. I guess we’ll see what happens next.

Mollie: One of the biggest elements of Life is Strange was its focus on player choice. Is that something you think can be expressed in a live-action series, where the narrative is passive instead of interactive?

Michel: I think there’s the possibility for a lot of discussion about that. We’re making video games, and we decided to make games because of the interactivity and the player control, so that’s what we know how to do. We’re not filmmakers. Of course, there won’t be any interactivity in the series. Or, at least, I don’t think there will—there could always be a way. So it’ll definitely be different, but I think it can really be a great stand-alone story, or perhaps something that works with the game. There’s a lot of creative possibilities. The idea of choice might be harder to show in a project like this, but if you look at a movie like The Butterfly Effect, it worked well. You, as a viewer, aren’t in control of the choices and consequences, but you’re still seeing a lot of the possibilities. Too be honest, we took a lot of inspiration from that movie when we were working on Life is Strange. So I think that it’s possible to find a way to show the idea of choice.

Mollie: I feel like, because Life is Strange was such an emotional and personal game, it had to have been something near and dear to your hearts when you were making it. Now that we know there will be a live-action digital series of some sort based on it, do you get the sort of overprotective parent feeling, where you’re very concerned about how that will be handled? And, if Max and Chloe do show up, are you going to be protective of them and worried about how they’ll be represented? Or, will you be the parent that is ready to send their child out into the world and let them have their own experiences, and you’re excited to see what they’ll make of themselves without worrying too much?

Michel: [laughs]

I think that we’ll really need to be that second kind of parent that you mentioned, and we are. Of course, there will be some part of us that’s worried to see how the series will turn out, but it’s also really exciting, because those creative people will be able to bring something new and different and—perhaps—something better to our material. It’s like when you’re watching a movie adapted from a book that you love: sometimes if you read the book first, you might have issues with the movie, but you might also find the movie being better, or maybe the movie is different but equally great. It’s like how Steven King hates the original adaptation of The Shining from Stanley Kubrick. As a reader and a viewer, I love both. The book is one of my favorite books from Steven King, and Kubrick’s movie adaptation is great. I think it’s awesome. It’s very different, but it works great. But, I know Steven King doesn’t like that movie as much, and I get it, because it’s really different.

I think that we should try, and need to try, to not be over-protective, because different is great. Plus, it won’t change the game in any way—the game will still be there, the characters are still there in the game, you played your version of Life is Strange, you have your ending, your way of how Max was. If there is another version of Max and the other characters in the series, I think as long as it’s good storytelling and good characters and good emotions, even if it’s a bit different, it’ll be another great creation. We’re quite excited to see that, and I’m really eager to see where it goes.