Stronger emotional stakes and faster-paced drama promise an explosive climax that ultimately pulls its biggest punch.
The following article contains spoilers for Lost Records: Bloom & Rage (Tape 1).
Last time on Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, developer Don’t Nod left us all on a huge cliffhanger. The first half of this engrossing adventure began slowly, taking time to introduce its core quartet of main characters as teenagers in the 1990s, to ensure players felt they’d played a part in kindling their friendships. Still, this was peppered by ominous flashforwards to the present day, as the majority of the group reconvened 27 years later to process something Very Bad that had subsequently occurred.
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage (Tape 2) reviewDeveloper: Don’t NodPublisher: Don’t NodPlatform: Played on PS5Availability: Out now on PC (Steam), PS5 (launches via PS Plus), Xbox Series X/S
Events in that past timeline eventually reached a crescendo – a vitriolic punk performance demonstrating the friends’ new-found confidence together as well as their shared frustrations at their teenage lives – until it all came crashing down. Kat, the group’s fiercest member, is revealed to have terminal cancer. The game’s apparent antagonists Dylan and Corey, already aware of her condition, rush in to help, adding welcome nuance to their roles. The Abyss, Lost Records’ gaping maw of magical realism out in the woods, is seen glowing once more, reminding players it has a part to play (can Kat still be saved?). And in the present, protagonist Swann and her friends again contemplate the game’s mystery box, which has turned up addressed to the group almost three decades later.
Suffice to say, Bloom & Rage’s concluding portion has plenty of ground to cover in its relatively short runtime (at around five hours, Tape 2 is paced quicker and feels briefer than Tape 1), and it does so right up until the end, when it reaches another big climax, followed by yet another – and this time wholly more frustrating – cliffhanger finale.
But let’s rewind.
Tape 2 begins with quick answers to several of the game’s lingering questions. In the present, we learn who the mystery package has come from, and get a pretty definitive answer about Kat’s fate. (But surely, you think, there’s more to it than that…?) Back in the 1990s, the aftermath of the group’s disastrous concert has had a believably catastrophic impact on their blossoming friendships, and as concerns linger over Kat, the narrative keeps its tension as Swann checks in with her other pals. Having spent time to build these relationships in Tape 1, there’s an urgency here as you seek to claw back what has been lost, even as the end of the summer nears, and the group’s decision to cease contact looms.