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In Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, a group of teenage girls discover a dark secret in the sleepy town of Velvet Cove which brings them back 27 years later.
Not everything is as it seems in the deep forests of Michigan, as we find out in Don’t Nod’s new narrative adventure game Lost Records: Bloom & Rage. While Tape 1 was released on February 18th, 2025 for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S as well as PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium, Tape 2 will be delayed by a month and it’s currently scheduled to be released on April 15th, 2025 as a free update to conclude the game’s story. We had the chance to meet the team behind Lost Records at last year’s gamescom and it turns out that there are many people involved who were already working on the Life is Strange series, most notably Co-Creator and Studio Creative Director Michel Koch and Co-Creator Jean-Luc Cano as well as Studio Executive Producer Luc Baghadoust, Lead Character Artist Juliette Devillers, Cinematic Artist Johanna Bendemagh, Principal Lighting Artist Clément Marchal and Narrative Designer Matthias Fuchs. This reflects on the game’s story, narrative structure, dense atmosphere and gameplay. Just last October, Life is Strange: Double Exposure, the official sequel to Don’t Nod’s very first Life is Strange (2015), was released by Square Enix and developer Deck Nine Games.
It’s never as it seems, help me to name it
The first chapter of Lost Records, called “Bloom,” revolves around high school friends Swann, Nora, Autumn, and Kat getting to know each other and forming the eponymous band Bloom & Rage. A dark secret surrounds them and brings them together to Velvet Cove 27 years later. The game begins in the present, more precisely in the year 2022. At Autumn’s request, Swann returns to The Blue Spruce Bar in the sleepy fictional town of Velvet Cove in the US state of Michigan, and the social worker confronts the protagonist with a package labeled Bloom & Rage. Together, the two reminisce, which we play in flashbacks. Suddenly we find ourselves back in the summer of 1995. 16-year-old Swann is about to move to Canada, but wants to capture some dearly held memories with her camcorder first. We get to explore Swann’s room, which is naturally immersed in 90’s nostalgia – from troll figures to rock band posters, PEZ candy dispensers, Tamagotchis, Disc-Men and module-based 16-bit consoles, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage contains almost everything that was common at the time. While we interact with Swann’s cat, which you can name yourself and which comes in three colors (black, white, orange), or her beetle Twiglet in the terrarium, decisions keep popping up on the screen. As we’re used to in Don’t Nod games, you can influence the conversations, but more on that later. Despite some scope for decision-making and exploration, Lost Records is a linear adventure, which first becomes apparent once we find a snack and the VHS tape of the fantasy classic The Dark Crystal, the transfer of Swann’s camcorder recordings to the VCR is suddenly complete.
You’ll hang the hearts black and dull as the night
Within the game world, we are allowed to move freely in predetermined areas and take out our cameras at any time. We find ourselves in front of the local cinema and meet Nora and Autumn at the ice cream stand. During our recordings, we are interrupted by the bullies Dylan and Corey and put in an uncomfortable situation: Dylan is apparently suffering from a certain degree of paranoia and accuses us of filming her face without consent. Frontal shot. But that would be a criminal offense, and so her biker friend Corey rushes in to help and wants to get Swann to film him on his bike in an awkward and uncomfortable sequence. The use of music in particular underlines the oppressive atmosphere. But it doesn’t have to come to that, since we can also confront the two of them, though the situation can’t really escalate – somewhat symbolic of the fact that although the decisions influence the course of the plot, you can’t steer the story into a whole new direction. As is so often the case, not everything is as it seems. The character development in particular is a great strength in Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, which feels a bit like a matryoshka doll as we uncover character after character to get to the core of the story.
When the moon is high, I could touch the sky
The game allows us to record various animal species in the forest, even in intimate moments, discover all kinds of graffiti, but above all advance the plot, for example by recording the first rehearsals and ultimately a complete music video for Bloom & Rage’s first single. In the editing room, which is accessible at all times, we can swap or rearrange clips in no time. The grainy look of VHS recordings is reproduced authentically and those iconic sounds really take us back in time, although in some lighting conditions this can really not be very attractive. Each completed recording is commented on by Swann, which conveys the protagonist’s inner monologue. This is comparable to the diary entries in Life is Strange, but feels much more interactive. The narrative and gameplay blend well, for example when we take spotlight shots of the group in the forest and learn more about them. While Autumn seems to be the voice of reason in the group and the goth and rock chick Nora exudes strong Chloe Price vibes, the initially shy Kat turns out to be the incendiary secret leader of Bloom & Rage. Don’t Nod takes the time to gradually build up the characters and its setting. This should please all those who found the sometimes quite short Life is Strange episodes too compressed, but you do have to have some patience until the story gets going.
See you in Hell, you’ll fit in well
The gang is not only confronted with bullies, they also struggle with everyday problems such as finding their place in life, family problems and serious strokes of fate and on top of that they discover mysterious occurrences in Velvet Cove, which was already teased in the first look build and gives the game a whole new supernatural spin in the last third and will certainly take a vital role in tape 2 “Rage”. In-between roasting marshmallows by the lake and fixing up an old forest hut, you should also take a good look at your surroundings to unravel the mysteries of these gloomy woods. You can already feel the effects of your actions within the first tape. By discovering clues you can unlock new conversation options and dialogue threads and influence your relationship with your three friends, for example by entering into a romantic relationship with a character and thus unlocking additional scenes. While Lost Records is pretty predictable in terms of gameplay – we quickly internalized the camcorder mechanics, the timing-based decisions create the feeling of realistic dialogues without artificially generating tension, and mild combination puzzles and mini-games featuring the drum machine lighten up the exploration-based gameplay -, it’s mainly the exciting story that keeps us hooked until the very end. Depending on your play style, this can take around eight up to even more than ten hours. As per usual with Don’t Nod games, every important decision is listed at the end of “Bloom” and we see which choices other players made in these situations. In addition, our relationship with our friends is also regarded in both the ’95 and ’22 timelines.
It glows at night, it’s just a start
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is a 90’s nostalgia flash through and through and comes in a charming comic-like look. On both PC and console, it’s simply a joy to explore each new location and find countless Easter eggs and pop culture references. While the English voice actors do a fantastic job, the facial animations unfortunately don’t always keep up despite being of a high standard, which can lead to dissonance while enjoying the authentically written dialogues. The music also contributes significantly to the dense atmosphere. While the title song “See You in Hell” is contributed by the Nora Kelly Band, it’s above all the recurring theme “The Wild Unknown” by the trio Ruth Radelet, Adam Miller and Nat Walker, who where also included as Chromatics in the reboot of Twin Peaks, that stays with us. The dreamy score comes from Ruth Radelet and Milk & Bone, who already contributed with “Natalie” an iconic song to Life is Strange 2. The synth music exudes a Stranger Things-like atmosphere, which is quite fitting due to the supernatural elements. There are also a few licensed songs by Cocteau Twins, Bratmobile and The Dø, among others, which mesh well with the story both musically and lyrically. The official soundtrack is currently available digitally and via streaming and will be released in full on vinyl with shipping expected for this June. In the version provided to us, we’ve encountered some issues with the sound mixing as well as slow-loading textures, drops in frame rate, animation and shadow glitches, which Don’t Nod is aware of and they’re already working on resolving that. Compared to other PC releases in recent history, the game runs surprisingly stable and doesn’t place too high demands on your hardware. On console – we tested the PlayStation Plus version on the PS5 Professional – we could not detect any notable visual compromises, although the frame rate is limited to 30 frames per second, which is certainly noticeable, but is very acceptable due to the slow pace of the game. The title isn’t currently PS5 Pro Enhanced, and a 60 FPS performance mode could always be added later, as with Life is Strange: Double Exposure.
Final thoughts
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is a 90’s nostalgia trip that you shouldn’t miss. Don’t Nod has put together an excellent narrative adventure with strong characters, authentic dialogues, an engaging story with an exciting supernatural twist and solid gameplay. The camcorder mechanics have been seamlessly integrated into the game and provide variety to exploring the rich game world. Aesthetics and atmosphere won’t let you press pause until the tape runs out, but you shouldn’t expect any gameplay revolution. If you like narrative adventure games like Life is Strange, Tell Me Why and Road 96: Road 0, we can fully recommend playing Lost Records: Bloom & Rage. The story carries well over the surprisingly long play time and it remains to be seen whether the second tape “Rage” can build on this high quality and how the story will continue after the shocking cliffhanger with which “Bloom” ends.
Don’t Nod provided us with a PC copy of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage which we used to capture the screenshots. PlayStation provided us with access to the PS+ version.
