Life is Strange: Reunion, the seventh game in the supernatural choose-your-own-adventure series, dropped on Thursday, March 26. Billed as the conclusion to the saga of original protagonists Max Caulfield (played by Hannah Telle) and Chloe Price (Rhianna DeVries), the game sees the pair (spoiler) reunite after Max goes back in time to prevent a deadly fire that will burn down her college in three days. Arriving 18 months after its predecessor, Double Exposure (the shortest turnaround for any game in the series to date), Reunion certainly has its issues, but it still manages to end the characters’ poignant story on a solid note.
Surprisingly, Max and Chloe don’t spend as much time together as you might expect, even after the delayed gratification that unfolds in the game’s first act. This presumably saved developer Deck Nine time on all the different dialogue the pair have, as well as a good reason for their different gameplay (they’re both playable), but it speaks to how quickly the game was developed. The three-day period the story takes place over, instead of the series’ usual five-episode structure, similarly seems like a decision that stemmed from this, even though it provides some urgency.
Likewise, a lot of what Double Exposure set up gets handwaved or sidetracked, which is disappointing if you’d been genuinely interested in Max’s new love interests Amanda Thomas (Samantha Bowling) and Vinh Lang (Sam Oguma). Characters like Diamond Washington, or Dr. Gwen Hunter are conspicuously absent, which in the latter’s case, is a huge step back representation wise, given the fabulous professor is transgender. As for other characters from the first game, or its prequel Before the Storm? Forget it readers, it’s Lakeport, not Arcadia Bay.
The game’s fast arrival is also reflected by a lot of technical issues. The original Life is Strange had a lot of problems too, but it was easier to ignore supporting characters having bouts of uncanny valley, or hair clipping, when the entire game looked like it’d been painted on an iPad, a charming quality Reunion’s more advanced graphics lack. It’s especially distracting during a major moment between Max and Chloe on a lake, where wide shots are marred by how reflective their hair becomes, and how bad some of the water looks: no wonder Double Exposure was set during the winter, when the lake was frozen solid.
During an early level, Max irritatingly reminds “herself” again and again to check on her students, whereas later on, the menu icons indicating whether she or Chloe are selecting the next line of dialogue while they’re together keep failing to appear. Characters frequently have major secret conversations out in the open, which is distracting, and another reminder of why realistic games centered on very human drama like these do require herculean budgets and schedules to remain as immersive as possible: just compare it to The Last of Us series.
Much more impressive is how the game’s narrative is far more complicated than its predecessors, with a significantly higher number of possible outcomes at the end. The mystery element in previous games had always been quite perfunctory, but in Reunion, there’s a strong chance you’ll fail to uncover the culprit, adding a great deal of replayability. Now while your first playthrough is typically your most authentic experience, if players are unhappy with their final outcome, then rather than arguing about it (as was the case with the original game’s infamous end decision), they can simply reload and replay until they achieve the perfect ending.
The cast and characters remain as engaging and layered as ever, with Hannah Telle continuing to be gaming’s sweetest and most relatable protagonist as Max. Rhianna DeVries was the bigger question mark as the older Chloe, despite her excellent performance in Before the Storm, but she also settles back into the role quite well. It is bittersweet that Telle’s original partner-in-time, Ashly Burch, wasn’t asked to return to the role, but DeVries continues to make it her own, and frequently manages to sound eerily like Burch at times too.
Reunion is also arguably the funniest Life is Strange entry to date. One wild scene has one of the leads getting absolutely sauced, in an apparent self-parody of the more surreal sequences in the franchise, and in another, Chloe goes absolutely berserk, fully aware Max can undo the worst consequences of her rash behavior. The game also pulls the rug under you with a possible early romantic decision, subverting expectations in a way only Max’s time travel powers could.
Max’s ability to rewind time remains the series’ most enjoyable gameplay mechanic, and getting to use it again would be worth the recommended retail price alone. Fortunately, Reunion also provides the walk into the sunset she and Chloe deserve after all the heartache and heartbreak in their previous adventures, proving that sometimes, that’s the best twist a story can have. As the credits roll, you may start to choke up again over this likely being well and truly it for Life is Strange’s original heroes, although it wouldn’t be surprising if they did appear again someday, albeit in supporting roles.
More so than most games, how you feel about Life is Strange: Reunion will be very subjective, because of the decisions you’ll have made in previous entries. Full disclosure: Max allowed Chloe to die at the end of my playthrough of the original game in 2015, and so for me, the game is a resurrection story, about a young woman gaining a second chance with the girl she lost as a teen. I was indifferent about Chloe in 2015, so I didn’t embark on the romance path then, but playing this, I was so moved by this modern take on Orpheus and Eurydice that I finally relented about joining the cult of “Pricefield.”
Hopefully, the amends this game makes after the backlash Double Exposure received means we’ll continue to discuss new Life is Strange games in 11 years – and hopefully publisher Square Enix will allow the developers to have as much time to make it as they did the previous games.
