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Life is Strange developer Dontnod has revealed ambitious plans to release several games across the next few years - though it hasn’t said what any of them are.
The Parisian company, which recently opened a subsidiary studio in Montreal, has six in-house projects on the go. They’re all expected to launch between 2022 and 2025. Announcing the news in a business review, Dontnod emphasised a commitment to its two great successes: Life is Strange and Vampyr.
“In four years, our royalties have increased fivefold to reach a record level in 2021,” said CEO Oskar Guilbert. “This dynamic is notably linked to the success of Life is Strange and Vampyr, which we intend to continue to capitalize on. It is therefore natural that we decide to accelerate our investments in the development capacities of new games that will follow in the same vein, both in the multi-project hub in Montreal and in the RPG hub in Paris.”
This year, the developer intends to ramp up production of the mysterious Project 8, a game in the “bouyant action-RPG segment”, made in partnership with Vampyr publisher Focus Entertainment. In Montreal, meanwhile, the company is building a multi-project division “with a strong narrative component”, led by the creators of Life is Strange.
Despite lukewarm reviews on release, Vampyr is Dontnod’s biggest ever financial success, alongside Life is Strange 1, and has apparently enjoyed a second wind. With two million copies sold since 2018, and a further eight million free downloads via the Epic Store, the developer has a strong base of public awareness upon which to build a potential sequel. It has to be said, too, that Vampyr’s Spanish flu era backdrop has only become more relevant over time.
Notably, though, 2020’s narrative adventure game Twin Mirror hasn’t done so well, with Dontnod covering only 75% of its investments on the project: “In a market that is globally saturated by the end of 2021 and penalized by the sudden closure of the Chinese market, the company believes that Twin Mirror will only generate a marginal level of revenue in the future.”
Beyond its own projects, Dontnod is overseeing two more games as a publisher. One is Gerda: A Flame in Winter, an intriguing narrative RPG-type-thing set during the German occupation of Denmark. And the other, just announced, will be based on a “minimalist universe” and developed by new Belgian studio Tolima.
Gosh, that really is a lot of stuff to be getting on with. It’s worth remembering that Life is Strange 2 ended on a high, which bodes well for the future.
Looking to board a hype train? Here are the 2022 games we’re eagerly waiting on.
