Happy October 11th!
Thirteen years ago, Max and Chloe stood on the cliffs and made a decision that changed everything. Now, as we mark that fateful anniversary, we’re unveiling a first glimpse of Episode One: Flight.
The whole team has worked so hard to get here, and we can’t wait for you to see what’s next. Hope you enjoy!
For the past few months, I have been playing Life is Strange with my Mom. This has been a very busy, stressful time in her life - my uncle has entered home hospice care, and she has had to move in with him and watch him 24/7 - and I have been doing so to help take her mind off of a lot of troubles. It has helped a lot.
In the first game, she found herself enjoying the characters, though she didn't really get that it was a mystery until the end. She enjoyed it quite a lot.
In Before the Storm, Chloe became her favorite character, whom she identified with a lot. She had a bit more trouble getting onboard with Rachel, but gradually started to like her, too.
After she was moved in, I started going over there, streaming from my computer onto her little Wal-Mart laptop. It wasn't always easy. But, I got it working, and for the past 3 weeks, we've been gradually playing through Double Exposure, reading Out of Focus, and finally capping it all off with Reunion.
At the start of DE, Mom immediately and emphatically rejected all romance options for Max. "She's Chloe's girl."
Gwen Hunter was an interesting thing to watch. Mom has always believed in rights for everyone, and we have relatives who are trans, but she hasn't had a chance to interact with many trans people in our small, conservative community. She didn't understand that Gwen was trans at first, only asking what was up with her voice. After explaining it, she was fine with Gwen for the rest of the game. Gwen wasn't her favorite trans character, though - that would come later.
Moses, on the other hand, became her instant new favorite, and remained so until the end. I think she was more invested in Moses than in Safi.
Lucas mainly made her roll her eyes.
Since we were playing the Bay ending, she didn't have to deal with all the drama around Chloe.
I've noticed two kinds of people who consume DE - people who think the game goes completely off the rails once Safi is revealed, and people who think that's when it finally becomes interesting. Mom was more on the later than the former.
Mom was loyal to Safi throughout the game though (like me) she had a real fucking problem with what Safi did to Robbie. She referred to it as "evil and mean" and confirmed to me it did color her perceptions of Safi a bit.
On the other hand, I think she liked Yasmin a lot less than Safi. This might be her general aversion to teachers and school staff in general, but she was never quite as onboard with Yasmin as she was with Safi.
In the end, she chose to side with Safi, out of a general sense of loyalty to friends and a desire for Safi to not go crazy.
Afterwards, I gave her Out of Focus, which she eagerly accepted and read through in about two days. She was very glad to be back with Chloe. She wasn't 100% sure how Chloe came back, but got the general idea. Because Chloe starts off the book just appearing in Seattle with no human connections or relationships, she was of the opinion that Chloe didn't exist prior to the first scene in the book, having been dead in our game.
Mom REALLY liked the book. It might have been her favorite part of the series. Chloe interests her more than Max, with her saying Max would always be okay because "she has powers". More on that in a sec.
Obviously, I wasn't there to get her initial reactions to everything. Reading a book is a solo experience, but I did ask her about it. She took the fact that everyone was gay in stride, believing that to be the kind of community Chloe would belong in. Izzy was her favorite member of the band, and she became her favorite trans character. She was surprised when Izzy being trans first came up in the book, but she was 100% Team Izzy all of the way. So much so that, after finishing the book, she picked up another (unrelated) book with a transfem protagonist to enjoy.
She really enjoyed Drugstore Makeup and it's hurricane of dramatic queer women in general. She really dug the idea of a song about an ex named "Crotch Rot", and she said her only real issue with the novel was that it ended before Chloe and Max reunited.
Then, in the past week, we blasted through Reunion in three settings.
In the end, Mom was satisfied with it as an ending to Max and Chloe's story. She was very happy to have experienced it with me, though she was a bit sad it was over.
Next week, my uncle is going into respite care for five days, and she is going on a well-earned vacation with her sisters. After that?
Her social medias have shown her Life is Strange 2, True Colors. the other two novels, and the comic series, and she is aware of the upcoming TV show. There are also some other Dontnod games that neither she nor I have played. She is also a fan of The Walking Dead, and we've both enjoyed the Vox Machina animated series, so Dispatch could be on the list?
So, who knows? Maybe the journey we've been taking together for the past three months isn't over yet. For now, consider my Mom a fan of Life is Strange.
So, after finishing up Reunion recently, I felt pretty bummed out that I wouldn't get to see any more of my OTP (Pricefield). So I decided to go ahead and write a fic that will follow them being on the road together with Drugstore Makeup, visiting Arcadia Bay, and more. Also, the photo is burned. I'm planning to post once every Friday, unless life gets in the way, y'know.
In case you haven’t noticed, the sub has had some issues lately. Most notably, a handful of users who report fan art posts so that they get hidden to the mod queue, and then the mods take a day or longer to restore them. Or in some cases never restore them. I don’t want to get into the other fandom drama, but basically different groups have trouble getting along with each other, and in my estimation, we need more mods to protect all groups of fans from the worst behavior of any particular group.
As far as I can tell, there is only one active mod (/u/_Jolenar), but their only direct interventions are to help users with the spoiler policy. This sub is big enough that it needs several active mods, and I expect that this need will only escalate as soon as the show starts coming out.
I am already a mod on the LIS TV show sub and the Pricefield sub, as well as Discord mod experience, and I would happily join the mod team to help reduce the toxicity on the sub. I also know u/sailor_tenchi is willing to become a mod here, and she has experience as a reddit mod (Pokemon sub) and Discord mod (Max's Room), and I trust her to enforce the rules fairly.
(as for the 3D rendering art, I made it myself in Blender. I used the lighthouse map I exported from the game last year)
EDIT: You locked the thread u/NotSoConcerned so I cannot reply to you directly, nor can anyone else. But I can still edit this post and tag you.
I want to be clear about a few things:
Ultimately I don't expect mods to be active 24/7, I get that you all have lives. I just think we need more mods that the community trusts, so that hostile discussions can be nipped in the bud.
1st place: LIS1
2nd place: LIS2
3rd place: BTS
All have been crowned and eliminated from the running.
Now it’s time for Round 4.
IMPORTANT: Vote for the GAME YOU PREFER / LIKE THE BEST out of the remaining options in the poll. You are voting for your favorite game, NOT against your least favorite.
Whichever game receives the most votes wins this round, secures 4th place overall, and is eliminated.
Poll closes in 2 days!
Round 1 poll: https://www.reddit.com/r/lifeisstrange/s/7gBvgnXakS
Round 2 poll: https://www.reddit.com/r/lifeisstrange/s/JWwhs1z1nT
Round 3 poll: https://www.reddit.com/r/lifeisstrange/s/R3kX5JRnUy
I've been wondering what people think about the future of the franchise, especially now that we're getting more information about the TV adaptation.
We now know that Rachel Amber has been cast, with Esther McGregor playing her, and there have also been rumours about other characters from Before the Storm being cast. This makes me suspect that they'll incorporate much of that storyline into the adaptation, rather than just borrowing a few elements from it. If I had to guess, we'll probably get at least one episode dedicated to Chloe, her past and her relationship with Rachel. It would make sense to establish their relationship properly rather than simply treating Rachel as a missing girl we never really get to know.
We also know that the producers are hoping for multiple seasons, but what that actually means is anyone's guess. Perhaps they'll create their own ending and continue following Max and Chloe, or maybe they'll eventually adapt True Colors and Life is Strange 2. Perhaps both. Who knows? But it certainly seems to me that they have some major ambitions for the franchise.
And I genuinely think this is the biggest opportunity Life is Strange has ever had.
That isn't just me being optimistic either. TV adaptations have repeatedly demonstrated their ability to introduce gaming franchises to entirely new audiences, bringing in new players and increasing sales of existing games.
There is actually some rather interesting research on this.
According to Ampere Analysis, TV adaptations have increased player counts by an average of 203% across the titles they examined.
A few examples:
Fallout: Following the release of the Prime Video series, monthly active players increased by 490%, with 14 million players engaging with the franchise. Remarkably, Ampere estimates that 80% of them were first-time players.
The Last of Us: Ampere estimates that the HBO adaptation attracted more than 4 million new players across its first two seasons.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners: CD Projekt itself acknowledged that the anime, together with the 1.6 update, had a measurable impact on Cyberpunk 2077's sales, helping revitalise interest in the game.
And the effects aren't necessarily limited to a few weeks following the premiere. According to MCV/DEVELOP, sales data from G2A showed that Fallout maintained a substantially higher sales baseline throughout 2025 than before the first season aired. Interest also increased again in anticipation of the second season.
Obviously, these franchises are considerably larger than Life is Strange. I'm certainly not suggesting we'll see Fallout numbers. But even a fraction of that effect could be significant for a relatively small franchise like ours.
There's also the potential for merchandise, which I think is worth mentioning. Amazon has been actively expanding its merchandise and licensing business around its television productions. Fallout is another interesting example here. Amazon launched apparel, accessories, collectibles and other licensed products alongside the series. According to Marketing Brew, Amazon MGM's head of consumer products licensing described Fallout as its best-performing product line at the time, with some collectibles selling out within hours.
Life is Strange already has a recognisable visual identity, an established fanbase and characters people have remained attached to for more than a decade. I can easily imagine a successful adaptation creating demand for everything from apparel and collectibles to art books, soundtracks and new licensed products. Perhaps even making some of the older merchandise available again?
And this brings me back to something I've written about before. The franchise is currently in a rather strange position.
Life is Strange and Before the Storm remain two of its most established commercial successes, and the games centred around Arcadia Bay have continued attracting audiences for years. Yet Max and Chloe's story has now been declared finished, at least as far as the games are concerned.
So what happens if the TV series becomes successful and suddenly introduces hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of new people to Max, Chloe and Arcadia Bay?
Naturally, that should translate into renewed interest in the original game and Before the Storm, potentially also benefiting the remasters and later entries. But it could also create commercial demand for more stories involving these characters, just as the gaming side of the franchise has decided to move on from them.
There is, however, another major complication, and it's something I tried to highlight in my previous post about sales figures.
The narrative adventure genre is struggling commercially.
Looking at the available sales estimates, the numbers aren't particularly encouraging across much of the genre. Life is Strange is actually still among its stronger performers, something I think people sometimes overlook when discussing the commercial performance of the newer games.
Double Exposure is an interesting example. Its sales figures aren't necessarily terrible when compared with other contemporary narrative games. In fact, I suspect quite a few developers working in this genre would be delighted with those numbers. The problem is the cost. With a rumoured budget of around $30 million, the game needed to sell considerably more copies to justify that investment.
And that's perhaps the biggest challenge facing the franchise. The audience for these games still exists, but is it large enough to sustain increasingly expensive productions? A game can perform reasonably well compared with its competitors and still be a financial disappointment if the development and marketing costs are too high.
This is also why I think the TV adaptation is such an important opportunity. It could potentially expand the audience at a time when the genre desperately needs new players. But Square Enix would also need to find a more sustainable production model for future games. A successful television series alone won't solve that problem.
I think that's an interesting dilemma for Square Enix. A successful adaptation could give the entire franchise a second wind, generate additional revenue from its existing catalogue, expand its audience and perhaps make further investment in new games considerably more attractive. And if the series runs for multiple seasons, that renewed interest might last for years rather than being limited to a single release window.
Of course, none of this is guaranteed. The adaptation still needs to be good, find an audience and retain it. But even a modest success could do wonders for Life is Strange, considering where the franchise currently finds itself.
And personally, I find that rather hopeful.
What do you think? Could the TV series revive the gaming franchise, and if it does, where should Square Enix take it next?
Some of my previous posts on the subject:
Additional sources:
https://mcvuk.com/business-news/the-impact-of-the-fallout-tv-series-on-pc-game-sales-from-2024-2026/
https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/media/news/cd-projekt-looks-back-at-the-third-quarter-of-2022/
The showrunners have claimed they want more than one season. If that's the case Pricefield will give them all the same problems SE, Don't Nod, and Deck 9 had in trying to come up with more LiS content without Max and Chloe.
Don't Nod originally wanted to make one-off, episodic entries, hence why LiS 2 did not feature Max and Chloe. That lead to bitter complaints and, among other reasons, was what lead to the failure of LiS 2. True Colors failed to make much of an impact and we don't need to rehash what happened to DE.
So if the showrunners want a second season-- how will they go about it? If they follow the game, they have to decide whether Chloe lives or dies. Odds are better than even they'll choose to kill her. I personally think choosing Bae for a wide-release TV show would invite no end of unpleasant controversy. Killing off a whole town for the sake of a queer relationship? That's going to piss a lot of vocal and unpleasant people off, even those who won't watch the show. But choosing Bay makes for picturesque TV-- tragedy always does. Imagine the ending scene where Max is looking at Chloe's grave or coffin and sees a blue butterfly landing on it and then flying away.
Problem is I doubt people would care any more for a future season without Pricefield than the players did for future games-- especially if they go for the romance angle. Which I suspect they will, since that makes for better TV. Also, I strongly suspect the main audience of this TV show will probably be queer or prefer Pricefield. Not unless they want accusations of queer baiting.
Killing Chloe will have about the same disastrous effects for the show's numbers as did the death of Joel in the Last of Us TV show.
Of course one way to make Chloe's death palatable is to make her unlikable. But if they do that, the show will fail. Given that the stronger actor was picked as Chloe, I'm pretty sure that's not where they're going.
To be frank, Pricefield has had a tendency to suck all the oxygen out of the room, limiting the future options of any LiS media. Kill Chloe and Pricefield and a lot of the more dedicated fans will lose interest. But keep Pricefield and they have to keep making media with Max and Chloe.
So what are they going to do? I'm fairly curious. Let's see if they do a better job than SE.
LIS1 took 1st place in Round 1, and LIS2 just claimed 2nd place in Round 2! Both have been crowned and eliminated from the running.
Round 1 poll: https://www.reddit.com/r/lifeisstrange/s/7gBvgnXakS
Round 2 poll: https://www.reddit.com/r/lifeisstrange/s/JWwhs1z1nT
Now it’s time for Round 3.
IMPORTANT: Vote for the GAME YOU PREFER / LIKE THE BEST out of the remaining options in the poll.
You are voting for your favorite game, NOT against your least favorite.
Whichever game receives the most votes wins this round, secures 3rd place overall, and is eliminated.
Poll closes in 2 days!