u/Luvleahox67

Okay so basically I’ve just spent about 17 hours straight replaying Life is Strange and 100%-ing it and now I’m having a complete emotional crisis over fictional characters 😭. I’ve played the game around 10 times and for most of those playthroughs I sacrificed Chloe because it felt like the morally right thing to do. You’re saving an entire town full of people like Joyce, Warren, Stella, David and loads of others who aren’t bad people. But this time I played Before the Storm properly and saw Chloe as a kid and it completely changed how I viewed everything. Max left just before Chloe’s dad died and then barely spoke to her for 5 years. I don’t think Max is a bad person because she was only a child and didn’t choose to move away, but she definitely failed Chloe in a way that would have been devastating. From Chloe’s perspective her dad died, her best friend disappeared, she got bullied, struggled through school, then finally found Rachel at the lowest point in her life only for Rachel to be murdered. It made me realise Chloe wasn’t just an angry rebellious teenager, she was a hurt kid who kept getting abandoned and losing people. The whole thing hit me even harder because Chloe and Max’s friendship reminded me of my own childhood best friend who left when my life got difficult, and honestly some of their dynamic was also part of my first bisexual awakening 😭. In the end I chose to save Chloe because if this is the last time I ever play the game I wanted that to be my ending. It felt like the story had more purpose and magic that way with the butterfly, the storm, Rachel, the ghost doe and Max’s powers all seeming connected to Chloe. I also like that after everything Chloe goes through someone finally chooses her and stays. But weirdly I still think the sacrifice Chloe ending is probably the stronger ending emotionally because you actually see the consequences. Chloe’s funeral makes me cry every time because you see how many people loved her and how much she mattered. The game is so painful because neither choice is completely right or wrong. Arcadia Bay isn’t full of evil people like Chloe and Rachel sometimes make it seem, but Chloe also isn’t just one random person. She’s someone who has lost almost everything. My only disappointment with saving Chloe was that after all that emotional investment the game basically ends with Max and Chloe driving away and you don’t really get to see who survived or what happened afterwards. So now I’ve been awake from 9pm until 2pm crying over fictional lesbians and debating moral philosophy with an AI. Please explain why a video game has emotionally destroyed me 😭.