RPS Feature The inevitability of "Bury Your Gays"
Spoiler warning: This article includes spoilers for the entirety of both Life Is Strange and Life Is Strange: Before The Storm.
Life Is Strange: Before The Storm is, in its own right, a very good game. But it can’t avoid the fact that it’s a Life Is Strange game, specifically a prequel to the original. And in the original, one of its central characters is dead. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s time to say goodbye to Chloe and Max again, at least for a while. They’ve had their ups and down over the course of episodic adventure Life Is Strange and its prequel, and today they’re getting a final send-off in one extra episode, out now for owners of the Deluxe edition of Before The Storm.
Expect heartstrings to be tugged on with great gusto. While the stakes may be low this time around, heartbreak seems inevitable as the two childhood friends take one last adorably dorky walk down memory lane before they have to go their separate ways, as Max’s family moves away from Arcadia Bay.
Life Is Strange: Before the Storm‘s third and final chapter arrived in December, bringing the teen trauma prequel full circle, but that isn’t quite the end. Still to come is a “bonus” episode set even earlier than Before the Storm, visiting teensy Chloe and teensy Max before they were pulled apart. Square Enix today announced that the bonus ep, named Farewell, will launch on March 6th. It will only be available in the game’s various deluxe editions, which is a bummer. New deluxe editions are coming, mind, including one with the soundtrack on vinyl for those who enjoy forcing squished dinosaurs to do karaoke. Read the rest of this entry »
Tragic teen tale Life Is Strange: Before The Storm has concluded with the launch of its third episode last night. Before The Storm is the prequel to 2015’s wonderful third-person coming-of-ager, doing away with the time-travel powers as it focuses on wild rebel Chloe and her gal pal Rachel Amber. It’s a story whose final ending was already known, but I’m told life is about the journey not the destination. A bonus episode is still to come, reuniting Max and Chloe and their original voice actors for a prequel to this prequel, but that’s separate from Before The Storm’s story – and only for Deluxe Edition owners. For now, let’s see what Chloe and Rachel are up to in episode 3: Read the rest of this entry »
The voice actor behind spunky punky teen rebel Chloe in the original Life Is Strange, Ashly Burch, will reprise her role in the bonus episode of prequel series Life Is Strange: Before the Storm. While Chloe is the main character in Before the Storm, Burch couldn’t play her because of the voice actor strike so publishers Square Enix replaced her with another actor, Rhianna DeVries. Oh dear oh dear. But the strike is over now and Burch will voice Chloe once more in ‘Farewell’. Life is strange but business is stranger. Read the rest of this entry »
Teen ’em up prequel Life Is Strange: Before the Storm is a story with an ending we already know but hell, isn’t life? It’s all about the journey, maaan. And the journey continues a little more today with the launch of the series’s second episode (of three). In it, aw heck, you know how it goes: teens hang out, teens get into trouble, and grown-ups just don’t understand. Read the rest of this entry »
The misadventures of Chloe and Rachel will continue in Life Is Strange: Before The Storm [official site] next week. Publishers Square Enix today announced that episode 2 of the teen ’em up prequel will launch on Thursday, October 19th, and showed a little of what’ll happen. Watch: Read the rest of this entry »
Life is Strange: Before the Storm [official site] is the episodic narrative adventure Life is Strange prequel which shines a light on grieving rebel Chloe’s sudden and intense friendship with school queen bee, Rachel Amber. Rather than this being a Dontnod game the story has been entrusted to third party devs at Deck Nine, although Deck Nine have kept the look and feel of the original episodic teen tale intact, rooting a lot of the action in familiar locations and involving familiar faces. It struggles with characterisation and motivation at times, BUT it also made me laugh out loud and furnished me with an unexpected weepy moment. Here’s Wot I Think: Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature Insult fighting
Zack Garriss wants you to feel guilty when bad things happen to good people. The lead writer of Life is Strange prequel Before the Storm is as passionate as any writer I’ve ever met on the subject of interactive storytelling and he has some strong opinions about the future of the medium. Guilt and grief might be the main course, but there’s a side order of emotional highs and the occasional bout of expletive-laden insult swordfighting, minus the swords.
As someone who loved Life if Strange and will probably play Life is Strange: Before the Storm [official site] immediately I have been avoiding pretty much all news and spoilers regarding the latter. To the point where I will a) not be watching this 9-minute video at all and b) don’t actually know what the game involves other than being set before the first game.
That puts me in rather a bind when it comes to this being a news story about a 9-minute video for Life is Strange: Before the Storm so here’s the thing: I’m going to embed the video after the jump in case you want to watch it and then just write a load of words I like so that there is #content BUT if Graham asks you could tell him it was a great and relevant news story full of insights and also perhaps that I deserve a payrise? Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature Teenage Kicks Against the Pricks
There’s an obvious metaphor in the subtitle of the Life is Strange [official site] prequel. Before the Storm refers to a meteorological incident in the original game, but this is a coming of age story. Growing up can be as violent, euphoric, frightening and cleansing as a storm.
What I’ve seen of the prequel makes youth seem like the precursor to tragedy. We’re going to play through the origin story of teen rebel Chloe and we’re going to see the buds of a romance that moves through awkwardness to realisation and eventually gets lost in the horrors of a missing person case. In one of the scenes shown to the press at E3, Chloe can choose to describe her relationship with Rachel as a friendship or “something more”, but however she chooses to see it, and however she can’t help but feel it, we know the end is loss.
Gameplay snippets from Life Is Strange: Before The Storm [official site], a miniseries prequel focused on the wonderful teen melodrama’s gal pal co-star Chloe, have oozed out of E3 and- hey wait, that’s not Chloe! Turns out, she has been replaced. While Chloe’s original voice actor, Ashly Burch, is consulting on the prequel, she isn’t actually playing Chloe this time. This wasn’t a creative decision, but rather down to the ongoing voice actor union strike. You can hear Chloe’s new voice in this gameplay video: Read the rest of this entry »
Heartbreaking teen melodrama Life Is Strange will return on August 31st with a three-episode prequel starring Chloe, named Life Is Strange: Before The Storm [official site]. Set three years before the first game, it’ll tell how Chloe’s doomed relationship with gal pal Rachel Amber began. Life Is Strange makes clear how that all ends so sure, go on, twist the knife, you monsters.
Unexpectedly, this is in addition to the new Life Is Strange game that creators Dontnod Entertainment recently announced. Yup, a different team is making it, so two new Lives Are Strange are coming. Here, check out the announcement trailer: Read the rest of this entry »
