The original Life is Strange has been played by over 20 million people
Hella impressive
Eight years after Dontnod’s time-rewinding teen drama made its debut, the original Life is Strange has now been played by over 20 million people.
The developers revealed the hella impressive milestone on Thanksgiving, thanking fans for following Max and Chloe in their time-twisting hijinks across Arcadia Bay.
“Something we are very grateful for - the original Life is Strange has hit over 20 million players!” Dontnod X-ed. “We want to thank each and every one of you for playing!”
While the post specifies the original Life is Strange and doesn’t break things down by platform, that figure has no doubt been helped by its first episode being made free forever in 2016, the first season’s appearance across various game subscription services over the years and the release of a remaster just last year.
Of course, the OG LiS was followed up by spin-off prequel Before the Storm, standalone spin-off-slash-teaser-slash-sorta-prequel The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit, full sequel Life is Strange 2 and most recent spin-off Life is Strange: True Colors, which swapped LIS1’s time-controlling Max Caulfield and LIS2’s telekinetic Daniel Diaz for new empathetic hero Alex Chen last year. There’s also been a tie-in book and plans for a TV adaptation in that time.
While it’s been a few years since I last revisited the first entry in the surprisingly prolific series (side note: thinking back to 2015 makes me crumble into dust), I remember being utterly charmed by it - awkward teenage dialogue being very much part of the charm, haters be damned. (It’s not nearly as cringey as real-life teens I’ve spoken to.) It’s got an absolute corker of a soundtrack, too.
If you’re not one of those 20 million people to have played Life is Strange in some form over the last eight years, its Remastered collection - with both the original game and Before the Storm - is currently half price over on Steam if you’re curious.