Life is Strange developer and Microsoft announce Tell Me Why
Features first playable trans character "from a major studio and publisher".
Tell Me Why is the next narrative adventure game from Life is Strange developer Dontnod, Microsoft has announced tonight during X019.
Xbox Games Studios will partner with Dontnod to bring the game to Xbox One, Steam and Windows 10 PC in summer 2020.
It stars "the first playable video game hero from a major studio and publisher who is also transgender", Microsoft senior creative director Joseph Staten said in a statement today.
While not developed by specifically by the Life is Strange team within Dontnod, it sounds like it will be very much of that same style.
Its setting is in a small town within Alaska, and its core mechanic will be the bond between sibling main characters Tyler and Alyson.
"Over the course of the story, players will explore the identical twins' different memories of key events and choose which memory to believe," director Florent Guillaume said. "Ultimately, the choices players make determine the strength of the twins' bond - and the future course of their lives."
Dontnod has worked with GLAAD, the LGBTQ media advocacy organisation, to create Tyler "as an authentic representation of the trans experience, as well as a genuine, multidimensional character," Staten said.
"Tyler is a fully-realised, endearing character, whose story is not reduced to simplistic trans tropes," GLAAD director Nick Adams said. "Creating a playable lead trans character - and taking such care to get it right - raises the bar for future LGBTQ inclusion in gaming."
Three chapters will release on a "clear and predictable schedule" which sounds like an improvement on and reaction to the sometimes long waits for Life is Strange 2 episodes. The full Tell Me Why story will launch within the "summer 2020" window.