The Life is Strange series is a pretty odd one. At the time of the first game’s release, I wasn’t really aware that there was much interest in the goings-on of a bunch of teenagers in the Pacific Northwest. Boy, was I wrong, because nowadays Life Is Strange is a core franchise for Square Enix, comprising a number of sequels, spinoffs, and even comics that are, among other things, frequently diverse and transgressive in their subject matter. I appreciate the Life Is Strange series a lot, even if I sometimes feel like I’ve aged out of their young-adult trappings. Now—with a new game on the horizon and plenty of older games on sale—is the best time to catch up on the series before the latest installment in a little over a month.
The upcoming game, titled Life Is Strange: Double Exposure, is pretty significant since it breaks from the series’ loosely established anthology framework. Characters have carried over between installments, and the games will often nudge (or sometimes shove) you into the direction of an easter egg or reference, but for the most part, every game has featured its own story and cast. Double Exposure defies that unspoken sentiment by once again featuring the first game’s protagonist, Max Caulfield. This time, Max is a young adult in her 20s, years after the events of the first Life Is Strange, but she is once again tasked with solving a murder. This time around, instead of rewinding time, Max now has the ability to shift into other timelines and realities, and tries to use this to save her friend, Safi, from ever being killed in the first place.
Given the fact that Double Exposure will be picking back up with Max, you probably owe it to yourself to see where her journey begins. The Life Is Strange Remastered Collection is currently going for $16 on Xbox and features remasters of both the original game and its spinoff prequel, Before The Storm. The main title plays from Max’s perspective, who returns to her hometown of Arcadia Bay in high school after some time away and reconnects with her childhood best friend, Chloe Price, who becomes the protagonist of the prequel. Along the way, they painfully stumble through stereotypical hurdles of teenagedom, including bullying, suicide, family tragedies, sexuality, and more. Life Is Strange is often hurt by its clunky attempts at trying to capture the language and thinking of teenagers of the era, but it gets by on its earnestness, sentimentality, and themes of nostalgia vs. living in the moment.
Life Is Strange 2 is thought of as the dark horse of the pack, so it should come as no surprise that it’s my favorite. Following Sean and Daniel, a pair of Latino brothers, it charts their journey across the American west coast as they flee from the law after a supernatural incident prompts a cop to shoot and kill their father. It’s a much rawer game than the first, having released a few years into Donald Trump’s presidency, and due to these factors, it unflinchingly deals with topics like racism and violence towards minorities. Sean, the older of the two brothers and the game’s protagonist, is repeatedly battered over the course of the game in a way that neither of the other game’s protagonists are, and by the end, this felt like a very pointed commentary on how the United States treats people who can’t possibly be white-passing.
Life Is Strange 2 is also interesting because the playable character isn’t the one who has powers. Instead it’s Daniel, Sean’s younger brother, who manifests telekinetic powers, and as his only remaining role model, Sean’s moral choices don’t just affect him, but Daniel’s upbringing too. You can raise him to be a righteous person or someone willing to bend the rules with his newfound powers to get his way. David’s AI makes choices at points in the story that weigh the lessons Sean has passed off to him, which threatens to complicate their relationship further. It is one of the most distinctive social systems I’ve seen implemented into a game, occasionally shocking me with some of the results, and is a fascinating lens through which players can view a relationship between brothers who belong to an entirely different culture than the assumed hegemony.
Life Is Strange 2 doesn’t stick its landing, in my opinion, but its brazenness and ambition go a long way, and I’ve yet to see a game come even close to it in the intervening years. You can get the entirety of Life Is Strange 2 for just $6.39 on Xbox, and given that it’s currently Hispanic Heritage Month, consider it your responsibility to pick this game up.
Finally, we have Life Is Strange: True Colors. The latest installment in the series, True Colors follows Alex Chen, who moves to the idyllic and picturesque town of Haven Springs in Colorado to be reunited with her older brother Gabe. Here she tries to start a new life after bouncing around a lot as a teenager and never having any real stability. She befriends the locals and begins to fall in love with them and the town when her brother unceremoniously passes away. The rest of the game—which, in a break from form, was released altogether rather than episodically—has Alex and her friends investigate the town and the corporation whose tendrils can be felt everywhere, in an effort to divine who allowed Gabe to die. Alex has an upper hand in this case though, because she is an empath (no, a real one) capable of seeing the emotions of people around her and peeking into their minds.
True Colors is robust and sound, but it’s also familiar and occasionally incurious, unlike the first two games. It is not without some gut punches, and one of its sequences contains some of the very best and most emotionally substantive work in the whole series, but more often than not, it just felt like a step back. For example, it felt way too in love with the idea of a place like Haven Springs, which seemed to blind the team from interrogating its politics more. The town isn’t perfect, but True Colors seems to think it’s pretty close, which is far removed from the lens that is held up to both Arcadia Bay in the original game, and the wider U.S in its sequel. It’s a little too cloying for my taste, but if comfort is a thing you come to games and this series for, True Colors has got you.
For $18, you can vacation in Colorado with Alex Chen and her friends in Life Is Strange: True Colors. Alternatively, you can pay $21 to get the deluxe edition, which has a prequel episode following Steph, one of True Colors’ romanceable characters, or get the ultimate edition for $32, containing the aforementioned content and the Life Is Strange Remastered Collection.
Fortunately, all of these games are pretty lean. Each episode of the first two games is less than or equal to a handful of hours on average, so you could easily spend a weekend on each one. Even True Colors is still structured episodically and can be completed in roughly the same amount of time, meaning that they’ll hardly overstay their welcome. Pick ‘em up now and dig into some particularly emotional stories ahead of Double Exposure’s release at the end of October.
