STACK January 2016 Issue 135

44 / 70

E pisodic games nowadays are
something of a novelty. Spearheaded
by Telltale Games, the method of drip
feeding gamers content sends web forums into
meltdown with discussions as to what will
happen next and concerns over the impact of
decisions made. Usually, they’re predictable and
proceed chronologically. But what happens
when you introduce the ability to reverse time?
That’s where Life Is Strange comes in. Max
Caulfield is a teenager quite literally isolated
from reality following her five-year absence
from her hometown of Arcadia Bay, Oregon.
Following exceptional events at her school,
Blackwell Academy, she discovers she has the
power to turn back time.
What follows is an emotional journey of
self-discovery and doubt. Episode One starts
out as your atypical teenage high school drama,
where Max is taunted by others in her classes
and is struggling to fit in. Where Episode Five
finishes, however, is on a whole
other emotional wavelength that’ll
leave you questioning whether you
should’ve watered your plant way
back in the beginning.
Starting out with decisions like
“taking a selfie” or responding with
sass, the game quickly snowballs into
a guilt-ridden descent of forcing you
to decide how to talk down a friend
close to jumping from a rooftop,
whether to dob in a classmate found
carrying a gun, or even deciding the
fate of your best friend’s father.
Life Is Strange’s choices,
combined with its ability to allow
you to alter these decisions once you’ve made
them, is essentially what makes it such an
impactful and compelling game. The reality
and the relatability of Dontnod’s game is what
draws you in so utterly and completely.
When compared with the studio’s first
title, Remember Me, Life Is Strange is a
groundbreaking and genre-defining title that
sets it apart – and offers a welcome break –
from the FPS and RPG games that have
become so prominent in the marketplace.
As Max, you are faced with choices that
will leave you seething for weeks – and even
months – on end, wondering just which path
you took that led you astray. There is never
really a moral compass that points due North;
ur decisions will have implications,
and it is up to you to come to terms
with that.
Dontnod have done a brilliant
job with the story. The important,
hinging (and morally ambiguous)
story choices you must make are
so obscure that they have almost
a 50/50 split in regards to which
path players chose. Put it this way:
if LIS was a movie with set plot
developments, 50 per cent of its
viewership would be disappointed
with the way it played out.
The artistic choices of the studio
are reflective of the alternative nature
of the game. Almost comic-like, the
design is real enough to create a
complete sense of immersion.
visit GAMES FEATURE
44 JANUARY 2016
GAMES
Life Is Strange is a
groundbreaking and
genre-defining title
Neil Peart, author and member of the band Rush, once said, “If you choose not to decide, you still have
made a choice”.This is fundamentally the basis of Dontnod’s Life Is Strange. Guilt-ridden and plagued
with the consequences of your choices, it’s a title that puts a lot of power in the hands of players who
ultimately wind up feeling as though they don’t deserve it.