Mind palaces and alter egos get an airing in Dontnod's latest Twin Mirror trailer
Small-town psychological thriller out next year.
With developer Dontnod's Life is Strange 2 already impressing, work continues apace on the studio's upcoming psychological thriller Twin Mirror - and publisher Bandai Namco has just offered a fresh look at its atmospheric mystery innards via a brand-new gameplay video.
Twin Mirror's latest trailer begins as protagonist Sam Hayes returns to his hometown of Basswood, to attend his best friend's funeral. In this opening scene, we're introduced to Sam's mysterious alter ego The Double - a manifestation of his inner voice, described as "an occasional advisor and permanent wise ass". According to Dontnod, Sam's double represents the self-confidence he doesn't have, as well as his instincts for self preservation and protection.
We're also given a look at a later sequence, unfolding the day after the funeral, in which Sam is forced to enter his "mind palace" in order to piece together the events of the night before - and try and figure out why his shirt is now drenched in someone else's blood.
Sam's mind palace is a mental space used to examine, store, and sort information, and plays a key role in solving Twin Mirror's puzzles and challenges. In this particular instance, Sam, an investigative journalist, reconstructs his hotel room in order to work through different possible permutations of the previous night's events. Whenever a block or a contradiction arises, Sam can go back to the real-world to discover more clues.
It's certainly an intriguing set-up, and gives the experience a deductive core that should help set it apart form Dontnod's previous output. Twin Mirror will, however, utilise an episodic structure similar to Life is Strange, with the first episode - Lost on Arrival - launching on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC some time next year.