Life is Strange developer Dontnod has seen quite a bit of change in the last year. Now, it will start publishing third-party titles, beginning with a game for developer PortaPlay.
Dontnod's flagship series looks to now be in the hands of Deck Nine, a studio made of Dontnod veterans, at least for its upcoming installment Life is Strange: True Colors. Additionally, Square and Dontnod will no longer create games together after Tencent purchased a minority stake in Dontnod, allowing the company to continue self-publishing titles, but one of Square Enix's subsidiaries will still be publishing True Colors.
However, going forward the studio will publish the works of other developers as well. The first one looks to be from PortaPlay, an indie developer geared toward making games focused on accessibility, atmosphere, and storytelling. The title of this upcoming game has yet to be announced.
But it looks like this PortaPlay game will be in line with Dontnod's usual narratives. The head of development at PortaPlay, Hans von Knut Skovfoged, said the studio was called to "work on games with meaning" by creating characters that will tackle moral dilemmas. A statement on the announcement describes PortaPlay as a studio that addresses war created by inner conflicts, a big theme with Dontnod games such as Life is Strange 2 and Tell Me Why.
This isn't the end to internal development at Dontnod, but rather bringing on studios such as PortaPlay helps compliment in-house games, allowing the studio to "remain true to our DNA," according to Dontnod. This move is part of Dontnod's push to become completely independent, and it'll be interesting to see what the minds behind PortaPlay and Dontnod come up with in the future.
Source: IGN