Lost Records: Bloom & Rage (Tape One) review – go back to a riot grrrl summer in clever teen thriller

The Guardian

18-02-2025

Ten years ago, Parisian studio Don't Nod effectively crafted a new sub-genre of narrative adventure with its teen mystery Life Is Strange. Part thriller, part relationship drama, it used music, art and relatable characters to create a touching paean to unshakeable friendship. After a series of sequels, Don't Nod's Montreal studio has crafted a new tale about teenage relationships, split into two episodes, or Tapes, the first of which will doubtless have fans on tenterhooks for the concluding part.
It's 1995 and introverted teen Swann is facing a final quiet summer alone in the rural town of Velvet Cove, Michigan, before her family moves to Vancouver. But in the parking lot of the local video store, she meets fellow 16-year-olds Nora, Autumn and Kat, and the four girls bond over their boredom and frustration with small-town life. Soon, they are inseparable, spending their days hiking in the nearby forests, making camp fires, confessing their secrets – until they discover a spooky shack hidden out among the trees and decide to make it their base. Here, they form riot grrrl band Bloom & Rage, channelling their dreams, desires and fears into fantasies of fame and revenge on shitty boys and repressive parents. But when their swirling emotions seem to awaken a supernatural presence in the woods, something terrible happens and the girls swear each other to a lifelong secret.
Now, 27 years later, the group are meeting again in a rough bar on the outskirts of town that holds special relevance to their story. Autumn has received a sinister package addressed to their band. Whatever's in the box may well be the dreadful result of that tumultuous summer.
In a style typical of Don't Nod, the game intercuts compelling cinematic sequences with interactive scenes, giving you control over conversations that subtly shape your relationships and the direction of the story. The narrative swaps back and forth between two timelines – the adult characters reminiscing in 2022 and their pivotal summer together in 1995 – and your actions in one affects outcomes in the other. At times, decisions you make as 43-year-old Swann at the bar are then retrofitted into her youthful experiences, creating fascinating ambiguities of causality and memory.
Indeed, this game is as much about the way we craft and edit memories as it is about what actually happens to the girls. Swann is a keen film-maker and her 1990s camcorder is with you throughout the game; at any point you can hit the right trigger to view the world through the camcorder lens. In the main story, you're using it to film a music video for the band, but you're free to record whenever you want. This feature is incentivised by a bunch of themed checklists – record 10 different birds, or five ruined playground rides, or snatches of graffiti. But you can also capture your own scenes from the town and its environs, or discreetly record your friends, building themed sequences that you can then store and edit. Although the interface recalls games such as No Man's Sky and Marvel's Spider-Man, where filming objects is a practical gameplay component, here the camcorder is also a metaphor for recollection and nostalgia – how trustworthy are these recorded artefacts? At the same time, the player's role as both gamer and cinematographer asks interesting questions about how we relate to the protagonists we embody in games.
It's not the only clever trick the game plays with format and convention. The dialogue system, for example, is specifically designed to capture the energy and chaos of the excitable-group dynamic. Options and responses change depending on who you're looking at as you talk, characters shout over each other, and comments get lost in the noise. At times, you can simply allow the dialogue options to time-out and choose not to say anything. In several wonderful moments this mechanic perfectly captures the desperate improvisational nature of teen relationships, the way a whole day can teeter on a single comment, or a fleeting moment of eye-contact.
There are times when the dialogue feels stilted and over-earnest, and the sense of authenticity gets stretched. Those who've played Life Is Strange will also see many parallels with that game, especially between Swann and Max Caulfield, both shy photographers using the lens as an emotional security blanket.
But like its predecessor, Lost Records wonderfully captures how, in young adulthood, seemingly insignificant moments can be charged with meaning. There's a picnic by a lake and later a game of truth or dare that absolutely crackle with intensity. The 90s setting is also well-supported, with spot-on contemporary references, from grunge band mix tapes to video players and troll dolls – it's fun to just pick up objects in the environment and reminisce, like wandering about some themed pop culture museum.
In the background, the mystery at the heart of the game is subtly introduced and there's much to anticipate from the second part. Mostly though, it's the characters and their brittle relationships that stick with you. Three days after finishing the game I'm still thinking about them, worrying about them, inhabiting that old shack with them. Unless you simply refuse to indulge in emotional young adult drama, you will be right there, too.
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage (Tape One), is out now; £59.99