On December 14, 2017, Red Carpet Report inteviewed Chris Floyd, the co-game director of Life is Strange: Before the Storm.
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Interviewer: What's up, everybody? I am standing here next to a man who has no right to be as good at what he does as he is. I'm with Chris Floy from Deck Nine Games. Chris, thank you for your time.
So, I just wanna get into a little bit of what we're gonna see in Life is Strange: Before the Storm Episode 3. So far you guys have taken me on this... I didn't know that there was this much emotion left in this property.
Before we go into it fully, this will be a little bit about how Deck Nine got this game after the first Life is Strange by Dontnod.
Chris Floyd: Yeah. First of all, thanks a lot for your kind words about the game. I'm very glad that you're enjoying it. So, Deck Nine Games... about two, three years ago, we really started to focus ourselves on making cinematic narrative adventure games. So that meant bringing on a team of people, including folks from tv and film as well as video games. They were really all storytellers interested in telling meaningful stories for players. So then we also created a new toolset, called the StoryForge toolset, for making these kind of games, creating great cinematic sequences and gameplay sequences. So, then we started looking around, talking to publishers about what we could do, what we were interested in, and when we talked to Square Enix about making some kind of adventure game for them, we honestly didn't expect they'd come back and say, "Hey, what do you think about making the next Life is Strange?" And that was fantastic for because we're such big fans of what Dontnod had done.
Interviewer: Yeah, and that's interesting, that you guys had made the toolset before you even knew what the game was gonna be. Usually the developer has something in mind already what they wanna do with that. So how was that when they told you guys, "Okay, you guys can do Life is Strange", what was the reaction, was that, you know, something that you guys instantly wanted to take that challenge on, or was it a little bit of trepidation?
Chris Floyd: Yeah, well, I mean, both. It was a great privilege to be able to work in this universe that Dontnod had created. And a lot of pressure because what they did was so unique was so unique and special. We felt like our toolset could totally make this sort of game, so we weren't concerned there. It was really just living up to the standards of what they had done in the first game, and just making sure that, particularly in a franchise where there are so many fans that are so passionate about that game, that we were gonna satisfy them and make them say, "Yes, this is a new Life is Strange game. These are the characters I know and love. This is the kind of game I expect."
Interviewer: Yeah, and especially -- jumping into Before the Storm here a little bit -- so far we've -- and sorry about the spoilers, but we're gonna touch on a few things; if you haven't played it already, you damn well need to. This is a really great story being told. -- So, we've gone away from the first game's main character Max Caulfield to her friend Chloe Price, and we're looking at her tragedy and how it really... We saw the after-effects in the first game, here we're getting into really the nitty-gritty of how she kind of got to where she is. So, with the story of Rachel Amber and Chloe Price being told, why was Chloe a perfect focus for you guys?
Chris Floyd: Yeah, good question. I mean, when we started making the game, to Square Enix's credit, they said, "Hey, you guys at Deck Nine, you need to own the story, so you tell us what kinda story you wanna tell." We all agreed that a prequel made more sense than a sequel because of the way the first game ended. So we looked back and we looked at all the characters we knew in Arcadia Bay, and we just kinda kept orbiting around Chloe. Because she's so fascinating, particularly at the period of time that we chose, you know, three years before the first game begins. She's really a character who's imprisoned by her grief and her loss after losing her father to a car accident and then her best friend Max leaving town. So that along with the promise of someone like Rachel Amber. The way Chloe talks about Rachel in the first game -- "She saved me", "She's my angel" --, we said this is a really important relationship. And Life is Strange is all about relationships. So that moment of Rachel, this person coming in at the perfect time and sort of saving you from yourself, that felt like a great dramatic story.
Interviewer: And, touching on Rachel Amber for a little bit... So, you guys seem to flash out a little bit more story than we were told in the first game, so, well, at what point did you guys come up with the idea for... not only do we know that Rachel Amber is gonna meet a tragic fate later on but she's got this extra weight of having to go through... basically her family's just total collapse -- how did that idea come about?
Chris Floyd: Yeah, it was important to us, you know, it was kinda clear we kinda knew from the set up from the first game that Chloe needed someone like Rachel to come into her life. But we realized quickly the story was much more interesting if Rachel needed Chloe as well, just as much. And she recognizes, Rachel recognizes that Chloe is someone who maybe appears broken, maybe as broken in a lot of ways, but is also a very strong person. We know that about her from the first season as well. So that's where the sort of family drama of Rachel's life at the Amber house was really powerful for us and really important, an important part of the story we're trying to tell.
Interviewer: Okay. And just, in Episode 2, that last dinner scene where Rachel learns her big family secret, how many... was there any kind of rewriting had to tweak on that, or was that something instantly you guys nailed right off the bat? Because that is probably one of the single most emotionally powerful scenes in a game this year.
Chris Floyd: Wow. Thanks. I'm really glad that it had that effect on you. That basic twist, I think, we put together relatively early on. But there are a lot of little details -- how we're gonna present (...), how Chloe is gonna take part in that, what choices you have for how you interact with Rachel's parents and those kind of things were things that I think we continually shape as that scene comes tother, both in the script form and in the game itself.
Interviewer: So, I have to ask -- how many of you guys in studio cried when you put that scene together and watched it back? Because I still... Life is Strange is something I constantly wanna go back to because there's so many different ways you can do choices. But that was one scene that I just don't... every time I go through it, it's always heartbreaking. I can't imagine what you guys were going through.
Chris Floyd: We have moments, I think, where, at the very least, it's a little more difficult when you're there seeing how maybe the (?) is getting made to have the same kind of reactions that players do. But I'll say certain scenes including that one, the ending of Episode 1 with the tree on fire, like some of those were scenes we had written on the page, but until we saw some of the performance and like particularly get the music for instance in those scenes, like, that's when some of the magic starts to happen, and we look at them and go, "Oh, okay, this is a seriously powerful scene", like, "This is, you know, the player's gonna love that, this is gonna work really really well."
Interviewer: Okay. So, now that we're heading into the game's or this volumes finale, I gotta ask: Zak and David, when I talked to them previously, they wouldn't tell me what the big obstable would be. You know, in Dontnod's game we knew the tornado was gonna attack Arcadia Bay almost from the start. They kept it a big secret until I finally was like, "Oh, okay, she's gonna deal with the roaring fire. There's a big impending fire about to engulf the town. So, will we see a more... since you guys have to wrap this up in one episode...
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