Dontnod Entertainment opens a new office in Canada

The independent French developer Dontnod Entertainment has announced that they will be opening a new studio. The studio is to be based in Montréal, Canada.

Dontnod is best known for developing the phenomenal episodic series, Life is Strange, as well as the sequel series, Life is Strange 2. Currently the company has more than 250 developers in their Paris-based studio, and is looking to continue scaling up as they open this new studio in Canada.

Dontnod’s CEO, Oskar Guilbert, explained that the company was delighted to be able to open up about their plans for expansion. The new studio is designed to both complement, and complete, the team that are based in Paris.

Guilbert added that the company’s goal has always been to create games that are as close as possible to their community’s expectations of them. With this new international studio, Guilbert says that not only will this be possible, it’s going to be far easier to do.

The addition of a second studio allows the team to not only envision more ambitious games, but create them as well. They’re excited to start working on the new stories that their players will be enjoying in the coming years.

The first project that the Canadian studio is working on is unnamed, but Dontnod has already said that they are looking for diverse voices to help them build and tell a diverse story. Given the pedigree seen from the Life is Strange series, it’s possible that this new game will follow a similar episodic format.

However, Telltale Games went down the road of specialising in episodic games, and it didn’t end well for them. The issue there was consumers investing in a full game, versus just investing in the first episode.

With Life is Strange 2, Dontnod offered the entire game in one package, and it seemed to sell fairly well, probably because of the first game’s popularity. If Dontnot continues with this trend, then maybe they can make the episodic adventure game genre work for them.

Of course it is possible that the developer is working on something totally different, and will surprise us all with time.