Today, the acclaimed English band Daughter has unveiled a partnership with SQUARE ENIX®, publisher of award-winning and best-selling videogame franchises such as FINAL FANTASY® and TOMB RAIDER®, to create an original musical score for their highly anticipated new game LIFE IS STRANGE: BEFORE THE STORM™.
The entire soundtrack entitled Music from Before the Storm will be released digitally on September 1, 2017. The game also includes three songs from Daughter’s back catalogue.
BEFORE THE STORM is the prequel to LIFE IS STRANGE, the hugely successful BAFTA award-winning narrative driven game released in 2015. It was a boundary-breaking videogame, with principal characters drawn from real life facing everyday issues, touching upon difficult situations such as bullying, suicide, teen pregnancy as well as tackling the complexities of love and friendship. The original game was celebrated for the strength of its music, and Daughter’s involvement in the next instalment is a brilliant continuation in the franchise’s development.
“We are so proud to have written the soundtrack for Life Is Strange: Before the Storm. It was our first experience working on an original soundtrack, and we are so honoured to have been given the opportunity to work with the team,” remarks lead singer, Elena Tonra. “We loved the story on first read as it centres around realistic female lead characters who are emotional, intelligent, sensitive and badass in equal measure. I think the characters themselves have really inspired the soundscapes we have created. It was a pleasure to be involved.”
“We wanted to have fun with this project so we made something we felt could be a soundtrack for the characters in the game themselves. It was also important for us to make sure this collection of songs and pieces of music stood on their own so we really went that extra mile. We hope players and non-players alike will equally enjoy it,” notes founding band member, Igor Haefeli.
The game was officially unveiled as part of the Xbox E3 Briefing in June. The first of three episodes is entitled ‘Awake’ and will be released on Xbox One®, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system and Windows PC on August 31 2017.
“Life is Strange is a game that evokes a lot of emotion in people and alongside great storytelling and characterisation, it’s music that plays a huge role in this”, said Jon Brooke (Vice President for Brand Marketing, Square Enix London Studios). “It was really important for us to find a great collaboration for original music alongside our licensed tracks to capture the raw emotion of our game and Daughter fit that bill perfectly.”