The Xbox Game Studios head told The Guardian that, “We don’t have any direction or mandate that says every game has to be an ongoing, sustained game.” Psychonauts, which has a sequel out on August 25th, and Double Fine Productions were provided as an example. “There might be a Psychonauts 3, but I’m not going to tell [designer] Tim Schafer to go make it. Knowing the history of games that he makes, I don’t think he’s going to be making a game that has seasons and goes on for five years.”

Even with the success of games like Sea of Thieves and Halo Infinite delving into the live service model, Booty says that Xbox still values standalone titles. “Sea of Thieves has longevity and we’re going to have Halo multiplayer start to be based around seasons, but Compulsion Games, our studio in Montreal, weren’t told to go build something that’s going to have seasons or six pieces of DLC or something. Tell Me Why was an important story for us to get out there, but there is no mandate that they’ve got to go figure out how to do seasons for that game.”

Of course, this can also be seen in Halo Infinite which, despite having seasons and an evolving platform, is still providing a fairly robust campaign. As it stands, Xbox Game Studios has a lot in the pipeline for the coming years, from the next Fable and Forza Horizon 5 to Perfect Dark, State of Decay 3 and Avowed. This doesn’t include projects where it’s tying up with developers like Avalanche Studios for Contraband or IO Interactive for the rumored Project Dragon. To say that it has enough room for both live service and standalone, narrative-focused games would be an understatement.

While Dontnod didn’t initially announce why the game was free, it was safe to assume that it was in honor of Pride Month, which began today. The game follows a trans man, Tyler, as he reunites with Ashley, his twin sister, in their small hometown and try to figure out a major event that happened ten years ago. Dontnod later confirmed the reasoning in a Twitter post.

It’s a really nice gesture from one of the industry’s best narrative-focused developers, and one anyone who is interested in playing Tell Me Why should take advantage of. After all, no matter your platform of choice, you can’t argue with free.

In honor of #PrideMonth, #TellMeWhy is FREE on Xbox consoles, Windows 10, and Steam for the entire month of June! pic.twitter.com/hS81fDhefw

— DON'T NOD (@DONTNOD_Ent) June 1, 2021

Dontnod Entertainment released Tell Me Why late last year for Xbox and PC, and as you’d expect from the people who made Life is Strange, it was a great game that told an emotionally charged story. Like most Dontnod games, it was also an episodic release, and if you’ve been on the fence about whether or not to give the game a go, now is the perfect time to do so. The developer has announced that the first chapter of the three chapter-long game is now free for everyone across both PC and Xbox.

Meanwhile, Chapters 2 and 3 of Tell Me Why are also currently being sold at discounted prices. Ordinarily sold for $20, they can now be purchased together for half off, at $10. It seems that unlike the first chapter being free, chapters 2 and 3 will be sold at a discounted rate only for two days- so if you should enjoy the first chapter and want to jump in on the rest of the game for a cheaper entry point, you’ll only have the next couple of days to do so.

Tell Me Why is currently available on Xbox One and PC. Published as it was by Xbox Game Studios, it is, of course, also available via Xbox Game Pass across both platforms. You can read our review of the game through here.

Xbox Game Pass has clearly become central to Microsoft’s strategy. Contrary to what many believe, Microsoft believes the Game Pass model is a sustainable one, and to keep feeding content into the service, they’ve been driven to keep looking for more potential studio acquisitions. In fact, the subscription service has even changed the way they develop games- or even which games they develop.

Speaking in a recent interview with The Guardian, head of Xbox Phil Spencer gave examples of a few recent Xbox Game Studios releases that would not have been greenlit to begin with if Microsoft hadn’t been confident in the success of Game Pass, and that the subscription’s userbase would be willing to give these games a try. The likes of Microsoft Flight Simulator (which enjoyed the biggest launch so far in Game Pass PC history), Dontnod’s episodic adventure Tell Me Why, and Rare and Dlala Studio’s Battletoads revival, would not have existed if not for Game Pass.

“I honestly don’t think we’d greenlight Tell Me Why if not for Game Pass,” Spencer said. “It’s an episodic, story-driven game – you don’t see a lot of them getting made. We knew with the 15 million subscribers we have now, that it would get played, and that people would engage in it more than they would if there was a $30 price point in front of it. Even Flight Simulator is a game we would not have green-lit if we did not see Game Pass growing. We had a million players of Battletoads! These are all examples of games that in an exclusively retail model would be more challenged.”

This isn’t the first we’ve heard Microsoft or its studios talking about how Game Pass has changed their approach to development, and how it’s made them more willing to take risks and work on more experimental games. For instance, The Coalition has explicitly said that the subscription service was a big factor in why they went ahead with the development of Gears Tactics.

In Tell Me Why, you play as twins Tyler and Alyson Ronan, who reunite in their quaint hometown of Delos Crossing, Alaska after ten years. The last time they saw each other was when their mother died, supposedly killed by Tyler in self-defense, and much of the game revolves around the twins trying to face their past and figure out what exactly happened, and why things went down the way they did.

"Tell Me Why doesn’t stray too far from Dontnod’s formula- it’s more of the same and plays on the developer’s biggest strengths, and though much of it often feels low-stakes, it is still another solid game by the French studio."

Tell Me Why does an excellent job of slowly making you question your notions about its characters, and it does that with the twins’ mother, Mary-Ann, better than all the others. You start out believing that the Ronan twins’ mentally unhinged mother snapped after years of tension and tried to kill one of her children over nothing, but bit by bit, you see through the twins’ memories and the conversations they have with each other and with other people of Delos Crossing that she was actually a loving, devoted mother, and perhaps things weren’t exactly what Tyler and Alyson believed for a decade they were.

Unraveling the mysteries of their past and learning more about Mary-Ann is the meat and potatoes of Tell Me Why, but it often veers off-course and tries some other things as well. This being a Dontnod game, there are elements of the supernatural in here, with Tyler and Alyson being able to converse with each other telepathically and being able to physically see flashes of memories in the world through their shared power, which they call the “Voice.” Tell Me Why also flirts with the idea of throwing a supernatural big-bad into the mix, but that doesn’t amount to much, and it all ends up tying back into the much more personal and grounded story of the Ronan twins.

On one hand, I appreciate that the focus in Tell Me Why is squarely on these two characters and the relationship they build with each other. On the other, I wonder why these supernatural elements even had to be in the game. Given the fact that the game never really goes all-in on them and give them too much attention, they end up feeling unneeded and at times half-baked, sometimes even raising questions that are never answered. I’m not sure the game would have lost much if those parts of the story had simply been cut out- in fact, it probably would have been much tighter and more concise.

"I’m not sure the game would have lost much if the supernatural parts of the story had simply been cut out- in fact, it probably would have been much tighter and more concise."

As far as the larger story is concerned, the supernatural elements aren’t the only issues. The town of Delos Crossing has a very Arcadia Bay “small town” atmosphere, even though Tell Me Why has nothing to do with Life is Strange, which didn’t surprise me, given Dontnod Entertainment’s faultless ability to make its settings comes to life. Which is why I’m a little disappointed that Delos Crossing doesn’t get as much room to breathe and truly come into its own. With three episodes that are collectively less than 10 hours long, Tell Me Why is shorter than previous Dontnod titles, but I feel that with an additional episode, perhaps the game would have been able to do proper justice to both its setting and the supernatural parts of its story, both of which clearly needed more time to shine.

Thankfully, the one area of the game that matters the most – just as it does in every Dontnod game – does not disappoint. The characters are the heart and soul of every Dontnod story, and the main players in Tell Me Why are some of the best characters the studio has ever written. Tyler and Alyson steal the show, of course, thanks to excellent voice acting and their believable, heart-warming relationship, and their ever-changing dynamic serves as a solid backbone for the entire story. The supporting cast here is excellent as well, with some characters in particular – such as Michael, Alyson’s best friend, or Eddy, the police chief of Delos Crossing and Alyson’s father figure – standing out. Dialog can sometimes be a little clunky, in true Dontnod fashion, but never enough that it took me out of the experience.

Tyler deserves special props, because he’s perhaps the best example of queer representation I’ve seen in a game of this scale yet. The fact that he’s trans is something that Tell Me Why always handles with the utmost care and respect, and it sheds just enough light on it without ever making it seem like that’s the only part of Tyler you should care about. It’s not flawless in how it handles this, and can sometimes feel like an almost sanitized version of the reality that trans people face on a daily basis. But the motive for that – which is a desire to be as respectful as possible – is something I appreciate, and even admire, and this ultimately more than compensates for the slight dissonance this can otherwise create.

"Tyler and Alyson steal the show, thanks to excellent voice acting and their believable, heart-warming relationship, and their ever-changing dynamic serves as a solid backbone for the entire story."

Of course, another key aspect of narrative-driven adventure titles like this one, especially those made by Dontnod, is the choices you make throughout the story, and how the consequences of those choices manifest. Tell Me Why is by its very nature much more low stakes than something like the Life is Strange games, which means that the choices you make don’t ever feel as impactful or weighty, but the crucial moments where your actions can determine whether the Ronan twins are growing closer or drifting apart make up for that, and thankfully, there’s enough of those moments in the game.

Other than the dialog choices, the bulk of the gameplay in Tell Me Why will be familiar to you if you’ve played the Life is Strange games. You explore environments, interacting with objects and learning more about the central characters and places, with the occasional puzzle thrown in here and there. Exploring these spaces is always a joy, thanks to Dontnod’s knack for consistently creating environments that feel truly lived-in, and the puzzles, though nothing special, are almost always designed well enough to be engaging (barring a couple of exceptions, such as one particularly annoying one that has you trying to restore power to the Ronan house by plugging sockets into a fuse box).

Tell Me Why is also a great looking game- in fact, it’s easily the best-looking game Dontnod have ever made. It’s not going to win any awards for technical accomplishments, but it’s a major step up over Life is Strange 2. The icy landscapes of Alaska are brought to life beautifully, environments are brimming with detail, and even things such as characters’ faces and the clothes they’re wearing look great up close. There are some technical issues, such as characters’ animations not matching with voice acting very well, or some audio bugs here and there, but by and large, they’re rather easy to overlook.

"Tell Me Why is a great looking game- in fact, it’s easily the best-looking game Dontnod have ever made. It’s not going to win any awards for technical accomplishments, but it’s a major step up over Life is Strange 2."

When all is said and done, though Tell Me Why doesn’t necessarily disturb the established Dontnod template too much, it executes it well enough that that doesn’t ever seem like an issue. Excellent characters, strong writing, and a deeply personal plot help the player connect with the story. In the end, that most criticisms of the game can be boiled down to “I wish I had had more time to spend in its world and with its characters” should, ultimately, be all that really needs to be said about Tell Me Why.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox One.

The third and final episode for Dontnod’s Tell Me Why is out now on PC and Xbox One along with Xbox Game Pass. The first episode launched on August 27th while the second followed just a week later. Considering the criticism levied at the developer for long gaps between episodes in its games, this is a pretty good change of pace.

The story follows the Ronan twins, Alyson and Tyler, as they return to Alaska to visit their childhood home. Tyler had a rough upbringing but the truth behind the events that affected the twins, and their mother, will need to be unraveled. Throughout the game, players will experience the memories of each twin separately and attempt to reconcile the truth.

Depending on the truth that one believes, the overall outcome of the story can change. Tell Me Why is also noteworthy for featuring the first transgender protagonist in Tyler, which plays a big part in the story. For fans of Life is Strange, it’s worth experiencing the tale and seeing how their choices affect the ending.

https://twitter.com/TellMeWhyGame/status/1304087296111714304

This weekend is looking to be quite a big one for Microsoft’s Game Pass service, with one of the games in question being the first part of Tell Me Why. The game is from Dontnod and is a narrative adventure title in a similar vein to their acclaimed Life is Strange series. The game has a unique setting and set of characters, and today we got three different videos to highlight that.

The game takes place in a setting you don’t see too often: Alaska. The town is called Delos Crossing and is home to many indigenous tribes of the region, which the first video highlights. The second video breaks down the representation aspect of the game with one of the major protagonists, Tyler, who is transgender as well as Micheal, a queer man who belongs to the Tlingit tribe.

And then finally, the third video focuses on the gameplay and how it webs out in what they call a “Rashomon effect” (after the famous Akira Kurosawa film), as you must chose whose memories of the twin main characters you can trust, and how the Book of Goblins, their prized childhood possession, will serve as the game’s main source of hints and lore.

Tell Me Why: Chapter One will launch tomorrow, August 27th, for Xbox One and PC. The game’s episodes will release on a weekly schedule afterward with chapter 2 coming September 3rd and the third, and final, episode on September 10th.

Like all services, Xbox Game Pass can have its up periods and its down periods. By and large, Microsoft has keep the quality and frequency of releases at a pretty good level, but strap in, because the upcoming lineup for the end of this month and the beginning of the next is something else.

The lineup for both Xbox One and PC is quite something. Of course, as of today you can get Microsoft Flight Simulator on PC as well as Spiritfarer on Xbox One and PC. On August 20th, you can look forward to the beat ’em up revival Battletoads and the classic survival game Don’t Starve for both PC and console Game Pass. On that same day, the PC will get some extra with Crossing Souls and Darksiders: Genesis, the latter of which is available now on the console side. Both Game Pass services will also get New Super Lucky’s Tale the next day on the 21st.

The 27th will be quite the feast for Xbox One and PC with the first chapter of Dontnod’s narrative adventure title, Tell Me Why, the surreal ’90s throwback of Hypnospace Outlaw and the zombie fighting rhythm game Double Kick Heroes. If that wasn’t enough, the next day on the 28th you can get Wasteland 3 on Xbox One and PC.

That’s quite the month, but Microsoft also apparently wants you to get a taste of next month as on September 3rd you’ll be able to get Resident Evil 7 for both Xbox One and PC Xbox Game Pass services. A little bit of everything and then some thrown on the side, I’d say.

Today’s Xbox Games Showcase was an interesting mix of newer announcements as well as some more information on previously announced titles. One of those was Dontnod’s Tell Me Why, a narrative adventure game about two siblings who have to piece together conflicting memories of their past. While the game isn’t directly connected to the Life is Strange series, it clearly takes a lot from it, including its episodic nature. But you won’t have to wait long for this story to conclude at all.

At the event, it was announced that the first episode, which they are calling chapters, will launch near the end of next month. The developer said they would be working to reduce time between chapters, especially since the last Life is Strange title suffered huge delays. They weren’t kidding, apparently, as this will effectively make this title a weekly one.

Tell Me Why‘s first chapter will release on August 27th, the second on September 3rd with the third, and final, chapter coming September 10th. The game will launch for both Xbox One and PC, with it being confirmed to be backwards compatible with Xbox Series X.

https://twitter.com/TellMeWhyGame/status/1286336567645265923?s=20

The latest narrative mystery from Dontnod Entertainment, Tell Me Why, has a release date for its first chapter. It’s out on August 27th for Xbox One and PC. You can pre-order the game now on Steam and the Microsoft Store. A new trailer has also been released, showcasing the different perspectives at play.

The story sees Tyler and Alyson Ronan reunited after several years and traveling to their hometown in Alaska. Growing up was tough but each twin remembers the events of their upbringing differently. Which perspective the player goes with and the choices they make will ultimately influence their relationship and future.

Tell Me Why will be available on Xbox Game Pass along PC and Xbox One. The next two chapters are slated to release by this Summer, which technically ends on September 22nd. Dontnod is also currently working on Twin Mirror, which has transitioned from an episodic game to a full-fledged experience. It’s out this year for Xbox One, PS4 and PC.