Don’t Nod Dev Pushes Back on ‘Hateful’ Life is Strange: Double Exposure Comments

Don’t Nod creative director Michel Koch has reacted to some of the “hateful” comments directed at Deck Nine employees for their take on the Life is Strange franchise in Double Exposure. Dontnod Entertainment, the publisher’s development studio, made the mainline games in the franchise, while Deck Nine was previously responsible for spin-offs in the series like Before the Storm and True Colors.

Double Exposure is out today, 29th October, on PS5, and you can check out our review if you’re interested. On X, before the game’s official launch, Koch wrote in response to the “tension and hateful messages” that followed leaks made possible by publisher Square Enix’s decision to release several episodes into Early Access.

Admitting that he hasn’t actually played the game yet, Koch (thanks, Eurogamer) nevertheless says that “nothing justifies hating on people for how they wrote their game”, a sentiment we’d support. When one punter asserted that the characters Kock and the original team had created had been “butchered”, Koch continued: “From what I read, I think we would not have written things the same way. But I felt the same with the comics and before the storm, and I kind of accepted it. I’m pretty sure when I play the full game, I won’t recognize my characters, but that’s also inevitable with different writers.”