Life Is Strange 2 has proved to be, perhaps aptly, a bit of a strange one, hasn’t it? The sequel’s first episode launched in September with very little fanfare, even though it’s actually really, really good. While we’d expected the second instalment to be out by now, developer DONTNOD’s taken to its Tumblr page to confirm that it’s still a couple of months away.
According to the French firm, you’ll be playing ‘Rules’ in January 2019, which is a whopping four months after the debut. “The ambition of Life is Strange 2 means that the previous frameworks no longer apply if we are to meet the quality of play and storytelling that our vision for a game like this demands and that you deserve,” the studio said.
There’s no question that Life Is Strange 2 has a “bigger budget” feel to it, with more environmental variation and a much larger scope to its storyline. But with interest in the new characters at an all-time low, is this sustainable? Again, we genuinely think the first episode is excellent – it just doesn’t feel like anywhere near enough people have actually tried it.
[source lifeisstrange-blog.tumblr.com]
Comments 22
Made a slight alteration to the headline and sub-headline to make it a bit clearer.
they will have to be carefull to not step into telltale's shoes.
Far too long. The episodic approach is risky, and I'd argue no one's really gotten it "right".
When the first season of Telltale's The Walking Dead launched it was a novelty that kinda worked, but since then, it's been a slippery slope.
I think a lot of people (myself included) would rather wait for the full season to release before playing it, but can you blame us? Either we wait for it all to come out and play through it at our leisure, or we play one episode which ends on a cliffhanger and we have to wait 4 whole months (!!!) to see what happens next. In my opinion it's just not worth it.
If these games had set release schedules from day one, it wouldn't be such an issue, but none of them do. One of Telltale's biggest problems was that no one was ever sure when the next episode of a series would release, so there was never any time for build up or hype.
Long story short, four whole months between episodes is a bit mad.
Oh, and not to mention how fast these episodic games drop in price once all the episodes have been released. Wait a year and when they're all out, buy them for a third of the price? Why wouldn't you?
I think them doing a brand new story instead of carrying on with the previous season probably led to some of that "lack of fanfare" certainly I wasn't interested when it wasn't going to involve Max and Chloe.
@ShogunRok I was stung with The Wolf Among Us which had a ridiculous wait between episodes one and two.
I bought a couple of Telltale games after that but often got the discount early bird price but waited until all episodes were out.
Like you say, it felt fresh with TWD, especially with some developer vids released between episodes where they claimed to have altered writing based on what the majority of people were doing, but people seem to have lost faith with it now.
@ShogunRok usually go on sale some time after the second episode 😂
I do want to play this but I dislike episodic games in general as when I am into a story, I want to finish it.
Also, it must take a long time to plan a huge Avengers style super hero team. Just look at the MCU.
@ShogunRok Sometimes they drop in price before the season's even finished.
Beaten again.
@get2sammyb @Bad-MuthaAdebisi Yeah that's true as well. Like I say, I don't think it's a model that anyone has been able to make work properly.
@ShogunRok Hitman was good, purely because of the way that game's structured. But I'd agree that the model's probably on the way out now.
I appreciated I was going to get stung economically by buying day 1, but happy to support a smaller game I really like.
More keen to avoid overpaying for the AAA hype games at launch which don't need my day one money.
If this continues at this rate,the entire season will take 16 months to be out. Surely they have to step up their game.
And this is why i wait for episodic series to have all episodes released before i buy them. It doesnt make sense. Half the time the season pass is on sale before all episodes or out, or in a worst case scenario, the developer goes bust (see telltale games). I just wont commit to that business model any more. In the case of LiS2, i will pick up the inevitable physical release down the line
I suspect the delay is because dontnod are overstretched working on twin mirror for next year too
Yeah, I'm also waiting for the whole lot to come out before I play this.
I like the episodic format once it's finished, because it's a nice way to break up gameplay chunks and play at your own pace. But waiting an indefinite amount of time between each one is a piss take really.
I don't see why they couldn't just wait until the game is finished, and then stagger each episode out every 2 or 3 weeks. That way they'd get people talking about their game each time a new episode comes out and nobody feels unsure of what's going on.
Uggh. I had decided to ignore anything spoiler wise and wait for all of the episides, guess i still have a 3 year wait lol. I think in the future they need to really think about just releasing a full finished game. I doubt doing it in eps is doing any favors for us or the game itself, more than likely just killing any hype for it and causing some to lose interest.
Btw lis is one of my FAAAAVORITE game series so personally i woukd wait forever for it and still be insanely excited but i can see why it might fail.
least its not gone down fallout 76 route
Thats why I'm waiting until the season is done, and buying it as one package.
Episodic gaming was a new trend that should've died along with the last gen.
I'm cool with the episodic formula in that I'll buy the lot as a package but just play one chapter each day.
We live in an era where TV shows release as a full season on Netflix. Taking a video game and making it episodic seems like a backward approach in comparison, no matter which way you look at it.
Disappointing, but it gives me more time to beat Before the Storm/Captain Spirit.
Most people will likely wait until all the episodes are released, which makes sense.
I don't think I would have enjoyed the first Life is Strange if had to wait in between episodes. Playing through them all in one sitting was magnificent, I plan to the do the same with this one as well.
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