A New Partnership and an Upcoming Co-Production
The French indie developer that brought us Life is Strange, Vampyr, and Twin Mirror now has something new in the works, and they aren’t tackling it alone. Dontnod has just announced a collaboration with Danish Studio PortaPlay on an upcoming co-production. PortaPlay is based out of Copenhagen and consists of an experienced team of about ten people. They’re currently developing an original project which they assure us is in line with the editorial vision and values of Dontnod. This works out nicely as Dontnod has made it clear that they wish to strengthen their publishing and marketing departments. These will form the backbone of future releases, whether produced by Dontnod or by third parties. This upcoming title will be the first one published by Dontnod and developed by an external studio.
In the press release, Xavier Spinat, Head of Publishing at DONTNOD, said that “As a publisher, we want to offer players experiences that are both accessible to the wider audience, while setting the bar high regarding themes and quality of design. From our first discussions with PortaPlay, it became clear to us that co-producing and publishing this original creation would allow us to expand our portfolio with a game complementary to our in-house productions, while remaining true to our DNA.”
All right, that sounds good, but what’s going on with PortaPlay? For their part, they’ve made it clear that they wish to create a game “with meaning” during this collaboration. They intend to combine solid game mechanics with storytelling about crisis scenarios and moral dilemmas, which is a pretty decent jumping-off point. They haven’t said anything about what the game will actually be about, sadly. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Are you excited about Dontnod’s upcoming project? Let us know down in the comments, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.