Life is Strange: Conclusion

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Note: This article, is split into two pieces: the first of which wraps up the spoiler free examination of the game. The longer second part summarizes the plot in order to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the story. If you plan on playing Life is Strange this is a short article.

Episode four (Dark Room) and Episode five (Polarized) share between them the most inferior parts of the series, while also containing scenes with incredible tension. Of course, both the problems and highlights of the series continue to plague and aid the ending in equal measure.

But there are other issues. The Dark Room seemed, for the first time, to have difficulty allowing the player to take control. The game limited the number of times when the player controlled Max, conversation was more railroaded then usual, and choices seemed to have little future relevance. It's not that the story was unexciting, though the ending required some implausibly unintelligent, out-of-character thinking by Max (I won't say Chloe because she's always been impulsive). The opening was slow, but an interesting what if situation. The middle dragged, but the last third was revealing and allowed more input on the player's part.

The series, especially Dark Room tries desperately, unjustly, and successfully to deceive Max and the player.

Polarized has the strongest opening with Max in desperate circumstances. Her constrained confrontation with the villain is the best scene in the game. Max finally puts full use to her, I can travel through pictures, ability rewriting the past many times in an attempt to escape. The conversation choices, while not game changing felt engaging simply because of the atmosphere of the situation. The episode continues to innovate in small but intriguing variations on puzzles and conversations.. Unfortunately the middle of the story and the end were underwhelming except for bits and pieces. The end, as might be suspected came down to a simple choice of two options. No prior events seemed to have an impact at all, except in shaping how the player felt. And the short cut scene/movie after the choice failed to satisfy. This isn't entirely unexpected considering the trend of the game. Don't worry, it wasn't as disappointing as the end of the Mass Effect series.

From here, we're entering the series spoiler territory. Before I do that, I would like (for those who are interested) to recommend playing Life is Strange.

I was right! Mr. Jefferson was the villain.

Let me start again.

The Dark Room begins in the new future created at the end of episode three. By saving Chloe's dad, Chloe remained her happy self, but crashed in a car accident instead. Now paralyzed she is slowly dying.

For some reason, unexplained, whenever Max uses a picture to jump back in time after five to ten minutes she snaps forward to roughly when she went back. She has no memory of all that happened in the middle and very little agency. After saving Chloe's dad she returns to her eighteen year old body, but the world around her is changed.

Understanding Chloe will die soon from her injury, and determined to prevent this, Max considers this new present unacceptable. She returns to the day Chloe's dad died and chooses not to save him. This section is a bit odd: the player is forced to change the past to rescue Chloe's dad, then is forced to change it back to what it was. The whole two scenes only last fifteen to twenty minutes. The only gain is except the memories of Max and the feelings of the player.

The present is now exactly the same as before Max altered it. She's in Chloe's room and they decide to conduct a third sweep of poor, absurd David's garage. She should have been thorough the first two times. This redundancy is frustrating. Chloe's step-dad has all the information they needed from the beginning, but he's too stupid to understand it, and they're too moronic to collect all of it.

With David's data, the girls realize Nathan is involved and dangerous, but still without enough evidence to go to the police Max and Chloe decide to break into his dorm and look for more clues. They also need to collect information from the ever recalcitrant and threatening Frank the drug dealer. He should have no problem helping since you're looking for Rachel, who he loves, but he defends his information jealously. He threatens to bodily harm, but eventually parts with the needed info for no apparent reason.

Back in Chloe's house the pair use the evidence to locate an isolated barn owned by Nathan's family.

In the barn Max uncovers a secret basement, and after opening a reinforced steel door with a code, enters an expensive photography room. It contains equipment worth nearly a millon dollars, with receipts in Nathan's family's name. Binders, like those seen at the end of episode two contain photographs of both Kate and Rachel in bound, vulnerable poses. Chloe sees a picture of Rachel and Nathan in her favorite hideout, a junkyard at the edge of town. To her eyes, Rachel appears dead.

They drive to the junkyard, dig where the picture indicates and find Rachel's month old corpse. With this evidence Max wants to go to the police, but Chloe wants revenge and convinces Max to find Nathan first. Another poor decision.

They go to the school party, hosted by the socs Vortex Club, which has already begun and Max manages to mill about without making any important contacts. Eventually, when Chloe receives a text from Nathan indicating he plans to eliminate Rachel's body they race back, only to discover it's still there, but Chloe is shot and Max drugged by a briefly seen assailant: Mr. Jefferson.

Polarized begins without the usual recap, and with Max awakening to captivity. Strapped to a chair in the room she discovered under the barn, she argues, fights, and pleads with Mr. Jefferson to allow her to go. He divulges he used Nathan, offering himself as a father substitute, and he loves taking pictures of naive, innocent students (especially female) lose these qualities as they realize death is imminent.

Through a series of conversations, Max travels through a number of photographs trying to escape until she manages to return to the selfie she took of herself right when the game began. After a brief conversation where she tells Mr. Jefferson how doomed he is, a series of pictures show him being arrested. Snapping forward Max finds herself on a plane with the principal, going to an art competition.

Yet at the competition, she receives a call from Chloe, and discovers the town in under imminent threat from the tornado she saw in her visions. Discouraged, she jumps back in time again, destroys her contest winning photo, snaps forward again... And is back strapped to a chair in Mr. Jefferson's dark room.

Serious problem! When Max changes the past, she apparently is brain dead during all that time she snaps forward. This is outrageously incomprehensible. In every time traveling situation, Max would have prepared and prevented these two unacceptable outcomes. The writer can't expect the the player not to see this obviously contrived weakness, only allowed so the writer can arrive at the ending they determined in advance.

Max is back with Mr. J, and though he hasn't figured out her power, he has decided to destroy her photo-journal so she....? There's no reason for him to do this, but it prevents Max from escaping. Death is approaching, but miraculously David arrives and rescues her.

Then the writer does such a rewrite of David it's horrific to watch. All those times he harassed Kate and called her guilty, forgotten. All those times he was an idiot and refused to speak up about what he did know, forgiven. His tough guy stichk, overwritten by a guilt-ridden, weeping, heart of gold sheen, while he takes down Mr. J and unties Max. You should see him when he realizes the step-daughter he hit, arrested, and called any number of ugly names, is dead.

As if that wasn't enough Max experiences rewritten encounters with Nathan and Victoria as they express remorse, right before they die. The author isn't providing deeper characterization for these people, but only multiple personality disorders.

After being freed, the Apocalypse is approaching Arcadia Bay: the giant tornado has arrived at last. With so many people dead; Chloe, Nathan, Victoria, and more, Max wants to roll back time, and the only photo she can use Warren took the night before. She struggles through the collapsing downtown to the dinner where Warren is hiding.

Traveling back to an hour before Mr. Jefferson captured her, Max convinces Chloe to call David and then they head to the lighthouse. This is where Max had her vision of the tornado, and the two of them stand watching it crush the town.

Everyone is dying (presumably) and Chloe understands the cause of the tornado: Max saving her in the bathroom. She says it must be chaos theory: Max's action caused the tornado. With a final choice Max and Chloe can either abandon Arcadia Bay to its fate, or Max can return to right before Chloe died and let it happen. The first ending is boring, without context, but the second one highlights a number of problems with time travel.

First, chaos theory/butterfly effect. Chloe decides that her not dying is the cause of the apocalypse in Arcadia Bay, but the game overstates the impact such an event could cause. During the series each day has a minor apocalyptic event, all of which conclude in the tornado. On the first day it's a snow flurry in eighty degree weather. The next day it's an solar eclipse. On the fourth day they see two moons in the sky. There is no way Chloe's not-death can be responsible for such extravagant outcomes. It couldn't possibly cause an eclipse or the appearance of a second moon. Even the massive tornado seems far fetched (though seriously, think of the physical effects if there was a second moon even for an hour).

That's not all. Upon choosing the sacrifice ending, Max goes back and allows Nathan to kill Chloe. But, she solves every other problem the player discovered during the game. She uses her foreknowledge to prevent Kate's suicide and arrest Mr. Jefferson, and yet no tornado. So apparently saving one's friend is forbidden, but rescuing a number of other people from a psychopath isn't.

That's still not all. Let's assume Max's power causes damage to her body (seen by increasingly serious nosebleeds) and can lead to catastrophic environmental disaster. She would have a moral obligation to never us it again, whether she saves Chloe or not.

Forget that the player never learns where the power comes from or whether it goes away. The whole story is about using a power to save a friend, living for five days through horrible circumstances trying repeatedly to save the friend, and then having to give her up (because it's the only ethical choice at the end) and never use the power again.

Though Max seems like a superhero she is in fact, powerless. Everyone has a fate, and trying to change it, if one had the power to, only causes catastrophe. What a depressing and unnecessary message.

Or is is?

Perhaps amidst all the cacophony of confused characters, an exaggeration of chaos theory, and a sense of powerless is a different theme.

At the end of Polarized, Max experiences a horrible extended hallucination. Her mind is breaking down under the stress as she confronts a number of obstacles. After she clears these she relives every moment of joy she experienced during the past week with Chloe. And at the lighthouse Chloe, though saddened by her revelation about the tornado, claims to be happy of the past week. Because she has been wallowing in a terrible hopelessness, a profound suffering ever since her dad died and Max abandoned her. Life was miserable but through the last week she rediscovered her childlike joy. Sure she won't remember it, but Max will, and that's enough for her.

Is this compelling? Maybe, I'll let you know (for me at least) next week with the last article on Life is Strange.

To close, I want to briefly mention one question and one final thought.

Does Max destroy the old timeline when she creates new ones, or is she leaving a trail of wrecked alternate universes in her wake?

All the idiots that did terrible things or acted terribly in not doing things, and unknowingly aiding Mr. Jefferson, its impossible to feel bad for them.

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