Life Is Strange is a unique little experience. People who have played Life Is Strange before will already have an idea of what I’m about to say, and those who haven’t should prepare themselves. With its painterly textures and cozy late-summer Oregon vibe, it’s easy to feel relaxed and happy. One of the first scenes is Max caught helpless in a violent storm, but it ends up being a dream sequence, and we come right back to the warmly lit classroom. This makes the following scene in the bathroom a punch in the stomach, as you watch a girl get shot by an unstable classmate.
At this point, the true mechanic of the game blooms forth: time travel. Max, reaching out to the girl, reverses time to when she wakes up from her day dream. She realizes how useful her power is immediately and uses it to go back to the bathroom and pull the fire alarm, distracting the boy with the gun and letting the blue-hair girl escape.
This leads to the first difficult choice Max has to make. She can either report Nathan Prescott (the boy with the gun) to the principal, or act like nothing happened. I instinctively wanted to report Nathan, but upon choosing that option, the principal reminded me that Nathan is from one of the town’s most prestigious families and didn’t seem like the kind to hold a gun up to someone. Now, Max looks like she’s trying to start trouble. I rewound time and chose to act like nothing happened, and I felt angry for letting Nathan get away with it.
The prevalent choice mechanic alters the game world with effects spanning from different dialogue options to taking the life of a best friend in the player’s hands. Throwing time travel into the mix enhances this game mechanic - it allows the player to rewind their decision based on the result of their original choice. It gives you the power to change things, to fix problems after they happen.
But after that first choice, I realized – Max is not a hero.
Max has super powers, now, but she’s still an introverted 18-year-old who is under the thumb of authority and those more popular than her. She can rewind every conversation she has, but she can’t predict the future. Max thinks she’s helping people now, but chaos theory will always rear its ugly head when the changes ultimately pile up and fate decides to balance things out.
Hence the storm.
No matter how much better Max thinks she’s making things, she cannot escape from the infinite arms reach of fate. Chaos theory is an ever-present force in Life Is Strange. The dream Max had when she fell asleep in class wasn’t a dream at all. It was a warning, that if she continues to change fate, there will be catastrophic consequences, starting with the first person you saved: Chloe Price.
Chloe is Max’s childhood friend, with whom Max lost touch when she moved to Seattle. Now that Max is back in Arcadia Bay (the fictional town Life Is Strange is located in), she is surprised to see Chloe transformed from humorous girl to rebellious punk after the death of her father, William. Max feels guilty, and Chloe has a massive chip on her shoulder.
There is so much more to the story. I won’t be giving a full summary, but I will be going into detail about what makes Life Is Strange a unique experience.