Square the only one ‘that didn’t want to change a single thing’
In the first developer diary for the upcoming Life is Strange, Dontnod (Remember Me) creative director Jean-Maxime Moris explained how difficult it was shopping the game to publishers, most of whom urged the company to turns its leading women into men.
“Square is basically the only publisher that didn’t want to change a single thing about the game,” Moris said. “We had other publishers telling us ‘Make it a male lead character,’ and Square didn’t even question that once.”
If this sounds familiar, two years ago Moris talked to Penny Arcade Report about similar problems securing a publisher for (the eventually Capcom-published) Remember Me. “We had some [companies] that said, ‘Well, we don’t want to publish it because that’s not going to succeed. You can’t have a female character in games. It has to be a male character, simple as that,'” Moris said. “We had people tell us, ‘You can’t make a dude like the player kiss another dude in the game, that’s going to feel awkward.'”
Thankfully Dontnod found a willing publisher. Life is Strange looks lovely and the first episode will be out January 30.
