Lately I’ve been talking to my therapist about visiting a rage room for the first time. It’s a place where you pay money to be in a room full of breakable objects at your disposal. Armed with a protective suit and a few weapons, like a bat or a mallet or a wrench, you destroy these items as a means of expelling your anger. I tell her that maybe I don’t need a rage room; maybe going to the beach every now and then is enough. “Why not both?” she asks me. “Deep trauma isn’t just about sadness. You’re angry. I want to tap into that.”
Lost Records: Bloom and Rage is aptly named, for it’s a game about rage—specifically the rage of teen girls and women. It’s a game about girlhood, about how hard it is to just be a girl in a world that seeks to undermine you at every stage in your life, in every way it can, not always with a bat or a mallet or a wrench, but with a force just as overpowering. But it’s also about how we as women can bloom beautifully together, despite the patriarchy and capitalism’s attempts to nip us in the bud from the moment we’ve been planted. Ultimately, it’s a gut-wrenching narrative and an unforgettable experience that this medium is better off for having.
Lost Records: Bloom and Rage is split between two timelines: one during the present day in 2022 and one in the summer of 1995. In the present day, Swann receives a message from Autumn, one of her three close friends from that unforgettable summer… only that this isn’t quite the case, as both have largely forgotten what took place. Swann, who you play as, mostly only remembers that the four of them promised to part ways and never speak of it again. But Autumn has received a mysterious package addressed to all four, the small-town girls who made up the punk girl band called Bloom and Rage, and so you’re off to uncover the truth, tragedy, and trauma of Swann and her friends.
As time switches back and forth, you’ll probably be reminded of the TV show Yellowjackets. There is an element of horror here, as there’s a mystery hiding in the depths of the woods Swann used to frequent with Autumn, Kat, and Nora, but it’s a cozier experience than that of a show in which women become cannibals. Don’t worry, though—it’s just as queer.
But it’s important to note that this choice-driven adventure doesn’t stay cozy all the way by any means. The timeline of 1995 features Swann, then a shy and introverted teenager who observes the world through the lens of her camcorder, meeting and forming a beautiful connection with each of her friends. It’s a slow burn, almost too slow but not quite, before it ramps up right at the end of the first half of the story, known as Tape 1. From the beginning, Tape 2 makes it clear that the slow burn is necessary for everything that comes after, which feels like a nonstop rollercoaster that will likely end in you shedding at least a few tears.
And that’s largely because all four of these girls are so superbly written that it’s impossible not to love them. Quiet and preferring to hide behind a camera, Swann is the perfect protagonist—a witness to the love and laughter and loss of this fateful summer. She’s honestly a bit cringey sometimes, reacting in a way or saying something that reminds me of how I must’ve come across when I was an awkward teenage girl struggling to fit in and figure out the kind of woman I wanted to grow into. Where the first Life is Strange had some cringey dialogue in a way that mostly felt clumsy, here developer Don’t Nod deploys it with sharp precision to paint an achingly authentic picture of girlhood. It’s purposeful and delightful, and I suspect it rings true for anyone who has ever been a teenage girl.
Then there’s Nora. The bad girl whose face is constantly enshrouded in the smoke emanating from her cigarette, at one point she confesses rather proudly that she adores attention. She’s a flirt with no filter, and she sometimes borders on annoying, but it’s a testament to the quality of the writing here that she never crosses that line; she’s just unabashedly a lot in ways that are easy to love. She’s especially close with Autumn, a sweet girl who loves to play videogames and is fairly straight-laced. When you make trouble—and trouble you’ll certainly make—Autumn is the voice of reason that focuses on practicalities and doing the right thing. But she’s no killjoy either; she’s wonderfully earnest and considerate of her friends.
And finally there’s Kat. A beautiful thing about Lost Records: Bloom and Rage, ever so rare in this industry and especially at the level where games like this are made, is that you’re a girl whose only romance options are other girls. Out of these three amazing friends, I chose to romance Kat, who’s arguably the character at the center of this story for reasons you’ll discover by the end of Tape 1. She’s an angry little thing, fierce and unstoppable like a category 5 hurricane. But her eye is her friends and her love for writing. A poet and a songwriter, she’s the soul of this game for me—the vehicle through which the unsaid goes said.
Spending time with Swann’s friends is like conducting a song of joy and heartbreak in equal measure. Enticing secrets are shared, uncomfortable moments are spent, and butterflies in your stomach are felt. As someone who writes games, I think creating characters this lovable is a harder task than many people give it credit for. But the writers of this game, past and present, have made it look so easy. Some of the most natural-sounding dialogue you’ll find in a game will be here.
It’s all gracefully facilitated through the game’s marvelous dialogue system. Swann is, again, the perfect protagonist here—I know what it’s like to over analyze social situations and mentally strategize when you should say something, when you should make your presence known, before the opportunity passes. But as is the case in real life, listen to the people around you for long enough and you’ll be rewarded. If you do that, the game will spring up new dialogue options in conversations. The dialogue system is a fantastic imitation of girlhood and womanhood; of what it’s like to be a woman in a group of other women and get so excited to say something that you interrupt each other. My conversations with the women I’m close to are often dynamic and intimate, and this nature is perfectly depicted here.
It’s impossible to review this game without touching on the exquisite camcorder and recording system. Lost Records: Bloom and Rage has something very few games do, which is substantial narrative context for its collectibles—one that also expands player agency. It’s the kind of system you have to see to believe, but it essentially allows you to record the environment around you, edit those clips into montages, and rewatch them as many times as you want. The game even goes an extra mile by featuring your recordings in some pivotal scenes. This never gets old; it looks at the things you deem beautiful enough to record in this (very visually stunning) world and says: your perspective is worth celebrating. As a narrative device, the camcorder delivers some deeply emotional moments too. Even with its few limitations, it’s truly just a resounding success of a system.
Speaking of limitations or lack thereof, Lost Records: Bloom and Rage is a particular triumph in this department. It’s a tight experience that will take you less than 15 hours, but within that time constraint lies so much freedom to shape this game into your own unique story. By the end, I was utterly shocked by the amount of permutations. Don’t Nod is no stranger to excelling at this, for Life is Strange 2 is one of the best games out there in terms of making your choices count for your endings (and in all other terms, so please play it if you haven’t already). I won’t delve into details; it’s best that you see all the possibilities for yourself when the game summarizes your choices at the end of Tape 2. What I can say is that my choices and their resulting consequences made me feel incredibly sad in some ways, and yet they never felt anything but right. I have friends who have vastly different playthroughs and for whom their choices and consequences feel completely right, too. It’s a feat for any game to accomplish this, but I find it most impressive when it’s a shorter game.
I only have a few issues with Lost Records: Bloom and Rage. Its cast, despite not being very large even when you count all the side characters, could be more racially diverse. This story about girlhood might not resonate with everyone as a result, and that’s completely understandable; I felt that barrier a few times as I played too. I also understand why some people will think the supernatural elements fall flat. As someone who enjoys Don’t Nod games, especially those made by this particular team, I’m familiar with their storytelling style of preferring not to explain the supernatural. I simply don’t think that’s the story they’re trying to tell here, but I do think disappointment with that is fair. Relatedly, I understand anyone who isn’t a fan of the ending sequel bait scenes, as they arguably undermine some of the game’s best moments. Finally, you’ll be revisiting the same places a lot, so if you want a story with an expansive map and scope, you won’t find that here. It absolutely works for me, but might not for you.
Really, pretty much all of Lost Records: Bloom and Rage works so well for me. It’s the kind of story I would’ve wanted as a little girl who grew up playing videogames, and the kind of story I want to write someday as a woman who writes videogames. Equally heartbreaking and inspiring, this is a story I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. It’s safe to say there just isn’t another game quite like it.
So yeah, I think I’ll go to that rage room. Maybe I’ll blast Bloom and Rage’s “See You In Hell” (as played by Nora Kelly Band in real life) while I cause some destruction. The world doesn’t hold back with the destruction it delivers unto women, so fuck it. Fuck the fear and the harassment and the harm. Thank you especially to all the women who made this game what it is—see you in hell not alongside our enemies, but as the queens Bloom and Rage sang that we are.
Disclaimer: I’m friends with someone who worked on this project but left early in production and has not been at Don’t Nod for several years now. This has had no effect on my professional opinion; if I didn’t like the game, I wouldn’t have written the last 2,000 words on it.
Lost Records: Bloom and Rage was developed by Don’t Nod Montreal and published by Don’t Nod. Our review is based on the PC version. It is also available on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5.
Natalie Checo is an ex award-winning journalist who still writes whenever a great game summons her. She currently works in PR and is a game design consultant for some cool companies. When she’s not working or consulting, you can find her writing her own games.
