WITH LIFE IS STRANGE A success and sister studio Deck Nine crafting a prequel, Dontnod's developers considered the future of their franchise. And that's what it was, they realized. Their narrative-driven adventure was no longer a small pocket of the gaming universe. It was one installment in a world, a universe, capable of intriguing players with more stories.

Co-directors Raoul Barbet and Michel Koch were ready to move on to a sequel. To remain intrigued with their creation, they needed to move forward thematically and mechanically. Life is Strange 2 should be grander and more complex in every way: from stories, to characters, to key moments that determine how the story will unravel.

"It's a bit selfish, but we made this decision because we wanted to move on as developers and creators," says Barbet. "We wanted to do something different in order to take risks and learn."

Life is Strange 2 would make a clean break from the first game. No Max, Chloe, or Rachel. No Arcadia Bay. And no time travel. "We wanted to make sure the game was still interesting without that feature," Koch explains. "That's why we added a secondary character who's always with you."

Players control 16-year-old Sean Diaz, a Mexican-American teen and, according to his nine-year-old kid brother Daniel, the coolest person to ever walk the earth. Sean and Daniel grow up fast. Early in the game, Kindred Matthews, a rookie cop, arrives at the end of a fight between a neighborhood bully and Sean, who got physical after the bully threatened Daniel. Officer Matthews arrives on the scene, and this is what he sees: a white kid on the ground, two brown-skinned boys standing over him. Panicked, he draws his gun.

Esteban, Sean and Daniel's father, leaves the house and tries to defuse the situation. Officer Matthews swings his pistol between the boys and their father. Then he pulls the trigger. Esteban is killed.

That one moment changes the course of the Diaz brothers' life. Orphaned, they're forced to stay on the move to survive. Barbet and Koch wanted the brothers to meet new characters in every episode, giving the story an ephemeral quality.

"It's like real life," Koch says. "You're traveling, maybe on vacation, and you meet people and form strong connections with them, but you leave them behind when you have to move on. We knew it was important that all those characters were really well fleshed out so they wouldn't feel empty even if you only saw them for a few minutes in one episode."

To the relief of Dontnod's directors, higher-ups at Square Enix expressed no discomfort in moving on from the first game's established themes and characters. "When something works, publishers want it to continue," Barbet admits. "But they're developers too, so we knew they would understand. On our side, it was perfect timing, and Square Enix [encouraged] us to do something really different with new characters."

Life is Strange 2's creators had lofty goals for Sean and Daniel. Fans and critics of the first game had mentioned Max's and Chloe's dialogue coming across as stilted and anachronistic at times. The Diaz brothers would be given more natural lines in order to be presented as everyday kids. "The first game's dialogue worked in its teenage high school setting, but for the second game, we wanted something a bit more anchored in the real world, rather than in a [hyper-realized] teenage world," Koch says.

Dontnod's second goal informed every design decision made for Life is Strange 2. Jean-Luc Cano, writer on Life is Strange, had an eight-year-old daughter when the team ramped up to work on the sequel. He was fascinated by the idea that everything he did, every word he said, would shape his daughter's worldview, behavior, and personality. Sean, he thought, needed to be in that situation.

Although players control Sean, their actions have a similar effect on Daniel. "That's why we decided not to have the superpowers controlled not by players, but by the secondary character," Koch explains. "That put more weight on Sean's shoulders: How you educate Daniel will shape him in a more complicated way because he has this power." 

In a normal world, Sean's role of big brother would determine factors such as Daniel's language, how he carries himself, and his self-confidence. But Life is Strange 2 was still a video game, and needed some fantastical elements. For that reason, they gave Daniel telekinetic powers."

"It's about brotherhood, but also like parenting, being responsible of someone you're responsible for shaping and preparing to face the world," Koch elaborates. "We tried to reflect that with the ending of the game. We tried not to take any side in terms of what's right or wrong, and let players have their own version of Daniel who was shaped by their actions. You have to really think about your choices when you're teaching values to someone."

Koch and Barbet searched for young actors to imbue Sean and Daniel with the delicate balance of innocence and world weariness they needed to convey. Gonzalo Martin and Roman George were the perfect matches.