During a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Bandai Namco Entertainment’s European Digital and Marketing VP Hervé Hoerdt stated that the company hopes that 50% of its business can come from new IPs in the future. One of these new properties is Twin Mirror, an adventure game from Life is Strange and Vampyr developer Dontnod.
Hervé Hoerdt discussed this partnership in that same interview, and seems to think Bandai Namco and Dontnod are a great fit for each other. He described the French developer as “rising star” and says that Bandai Namco recognized the talent on display in Dontnod games Remember Me, Life is Strange, and Vampyr.
He also talked about how Bandai Namco Entertainment works with studios like Dontnod. They don’t just throw money at them, they make sure they are a strategic fit and work with them slowly but surely:
“Dontnod is really a rising star. We can see that from what they did early on with Remember Me and more recently with Vampyr… We want to grow step-by-step. We’re not the sort of company to put $50m on the table to buy IP – we’re a Japanese company, so we’re slowly but surely moving [forward]. The fact that we have a strategic fit with Dontnod – we are growing, they are growing, they’ve proven they have something very strong with Life Is Strange and again with Vampyr.“
At its core, Twin Mirror is poised to be a narrative-driven and very emotional title, and Bandai Namco Entertainment sees franchise potential with it. Hervé Hoerdt confirms that Bandai Namco has full ownership and the Twin Mirror IP, and actually hopes to make a movie out of it in the future:
“Narrative, story-driven, emotional journeys are something we want to exploit. We will actually own this IP, so we hope to exploit this with a movie and so on. That’s another reason why we wanted to do this.”
If you want to learn more about Twin Mirror, you can check out its announcement trailer and screenshots and first developer diary. Twin Mirror will release on PC, PS4, and Xbox One in 2019.