And listen, maybe I’m biased because my favourite game is Canadian. Maybe I’m simply correct. Either way, in the spirit of spotlighting a nominee that might’ve slipped under your radar, let’s talk about a game that plays like a mixtape of memory, mystery, and the kind of teenage intensity you pretend you outgrew but you absolutely didn’t.
This game is DON’T NOD’s Lost Records: Bloom & Rage (2025).
It follows Swann Holloway, a 43?year?old filmmaker who returns to her hometown, Velvet Cove, in 2022 after receiving a mysterious package addressed to “Bloom & Rage” — the punk band she formed with three friends during the fateful summer of 1995.
The game flips between 1995, where teenage Swann meets Nora, Autumn, and Kat; and 2022, where the now-adult women reunite after 27 years to confront the long-buried secret that nuked their friendship. Insert gasp here.
The ‘95 timeline is all camcorder footage, garage-band dreams, late-night confessions, and the creeping sense that something in the forest is watching. The present day is quieter, heavier — with these women trying to piece together the past and reconcile who they were with who they became.
If the studio name rings a bell, it’s because DON’T NOD is the team behind the OG Life is Strange (2015) (LIS). They’ve built a reputation for narrative-driven, choice-heavy adventures that feel raw and human, and Bloom & Rage is no exception.
You play exclusively as Swann, often anchored in her perspective through her camcorder — a mechanic that’s both a collectible system and the thematic spine. It reinforces its focus on lost memories and the intensity of our teenage years — when time freezes the love and the loss that lingers long after. These clips later become part of Swann’s “memoir,” underscoring the game’s fixation on what we choose to remember, and what we try to bury. Memory, after all, is a kind of filmmaking: selective, shaky, tender, and often unreliable.
And yes, this game is gay as fuck, and not in a token, checkbox way. You can romance one of the girls, and the writing treats queer first love with respect, innocence, and emotional honesty. DON’T NOD has always been quietly excellent at queer storytelling, and Bloom & Rage continues that tradition.
At its core, though, this is a story about friendship — that specific teenage bond built on the belief that you and your friends could conquer the world, the certainty that they’d be in your life forever, and the heartbreak when reality proves otherwise.
The story doesn’t shy away from heavy themes — abuse, bullying, discrimination, sickness, death — but it handles them with care. Even when the girls drift apart, the game insists that some connections never fully disappear. They just change shape.
The art direction is gorgeous, with character designs that actually look like real people — diverse body shapes, distinct features, lived?in clothing. The environments feel immersive, from the sunlit forest to the cluttered garage where Bloom & Rage first rehearses. And the music… gosh, the music. Their punk tracks capture the messy catharsis of teenage rage, while the score leans into DON’T NOD’s signature indie?chill vibe. It’s nostalgic without being derivative — and yes, it made it onto my playlist.
There’s this misconception that 90s-set games only resonate with people who lived through the era. Sure, if you’re an 80s or 90s kid, this game will hit you like a Nokia to the head — my millennial sister ranks it in her top three games ever. But as a Gen Z heart, I’ll argue this: younger players will still find joy in discovering this analog weirdness — rewinding tapes, memorizing phone numbers, trying not to kill a Tamagotchi — and in the universal parts of growing up that transcend generations.
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is a game that makes you feel seen. It’s a love letter to friendship, to the summers that shape us, to the memories we carry whether we want to or not.
With five CGA nominations, it deserves every bit of recognition — maybe even more. And while the story isn’t finished yet, with a fandom hungry for answers, rest assured we have not seen the end of it just yet. After all, some summers never really end.
