Do you know any niche LIS trivia?
I certainly do! A lot off the top of my head, but I also searched up some sources:
In-game:
“And Max Caulfield? Don’t you forget about me…” is heartbreaking in context, but Chloe was also directly referencing the end of The Breakfast Club and quoted the song "Don’t You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds!
Because LiS1 was made on such a limited budget and with only 40 people, the team relied on Google street view for images of Oregon to design Arcadia Bay. By the time of LiS2, Michel Koch, Jean-Luc Cano, and Raoul Barbet were able to embark on an actual west coast road trip to map out the Diaz brothers' journey.
Arcadia Bay is fictional, but Puerto Lobos is a real town in Sonora, Mexico!
Arcadia Bay was inspired by Garibaldi, Tillamook Bay, Astoria, and Arcadia Beach, OR. Similarly, Haven Springs was inspired by small mining towns like Idaho Springs and Golden, CO.
The drifers' character designs in LiS2 were inspired by the photography of Mike Brodie, who met and photographed real-life trainhoppers.
Because Dontnod are a game dev studio who draw a lot of inspiration from anime, all of their protagonists are gamers and weebs. Max namedrops Fullmetal Alchemist in her journal (so no, D9, I don't believe that 28-year-old Max will "never understand anime") and can find a stylized manga in Chloe's house in 2008, where she thinks "Chloe was so into manga... nice hair!" In Captain Spirit, Chris's superhero transformation was inspired by Sailor Moon. In LiS2, Sean calls Daniel "Akiraniel" in his journal in reference to Akira, and Daniel's cut-up red t-shirt blowing in the wind is a direct visual reference to Tetsuo and his red cape. Sean's sketchbook also has references to Night in the Woods.
Cut content:
Ten years later, people are still discovering stuff! You can actually see Kate walking onto the roof of the girls' dorm during Jefferson's lecture in episode 2. And there were originally two extra options for breakfast at the Two Whales: Belgian waffle, bacon omelette, triple pancakes with syrup, and mega eggs burger.
After Max witnesses Chloe being shot and unlocks her rewind powers, she's briefly seen crying in the classroom.
The garbled dialogue when Max is rewinding is reversed audio of various dialogue lines from throughout the game, even lines that haven't happened yet at that point.
In episode 1 while looking for tools in Chloe's house, the scene was originally going to play “Draw Your Swords” by Angus and Julia Stone on Chloe's CD player before “Santa Monica Dream” was chosen.
Back in 2015, dataminers unearthed various cut dialogue lines from the game's files. A lot of lines from Max's nightmare were cut. Some more notable cut lines are Max saying "I love you" to Chloe and "Chloe... au revoir" in the sacrifice Chloe ending before the final scene had no dialogue. And also Max's notorious unused line "A popular meme these days," which itself became a meme 😂
Erika Mori originally sang for Alex before mxmtoon was brought onboard. You can still hear Erika's original take for "Blister in the Sun" here, along with all the mocap she did!
True Colors went through several major rewrites. D9 originally wrote Alex to be more like Chloe, before softening her character because they felt like cynicism and anger would clash with her desire to help others and her empathic powers. In an earlier draft, Gabe was actually the villain of the story! You can read more here.
The LiS wiki has a full list of all cut content from each game.
Cast and crew:
LiS1 lead writer Christian Divine voiced the conspiracist radio host Truss Limpbow in episode 5 when Max is driving in the rain and turns on the radio before hearing Nathan's last voicemail. His name is a dig at Rush Limbaugh, a conservative radio host.
Also in episode 5, Max is sitting behind Michel Koch on the plane. Yes, really.
Two LiS VA’s have worked on TLOU Part II: Ashly Burch, who played Mel; and Derek Phillips (Jefferson), who played Dr. Jerry Anderson. He only had three lines in TLOU, but his character was made significantly more important in the sequel as the father of Abby Anderson, so Derek reprised his role and did a full scene in motion capture with Laura Bailey. Derek also played Billy Riggins in Friday Night Lights, one of Michel Koch's favorite TV shows.
Because Dontnod in Paris didn't have their own mocap space, LiS2's motion capture was done at Quantic Dream, the studio behind Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, and Detroit: Become Human. Gabrielle Hersh performed the mocap for Chloe in LiS1, but then she played another Chloe-- the android Chloe in Detroit: Become Human.
Nick Apostolides voiced Frank in BtS and Charles in Captain Spirit and LiS2, likely because LiS2 had to use non-union actors. Besides Hannah Telle and D.W McCann (David in BtS and LiS2) he’s the only LiS VA who’s worked on both a DN and D9 project.
Rhianna DeVries was initially brought on to do mocap for Chloe and be a temporary "scratch voice" before they were brought on full-time due to the voice actors' strike at the time.
After True Colors, Erika Mori did some additional mocap for Deck Nine on The Expanse and even Double Exposure! She performed opposite Hannah Telle and Olivia AbiAssi (Safi) in the confrontation on the lake with Max's "doppelganger."
Thanks for asking, and feel free to drop more trivia in the replies!
