Life Is Strange is an episodic adventure game developed by Dontnod Entertainment and published by Square Enix. The first installment of the Life Is Strange series, the game was released in five episodes periodically throughout 2015 for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. It was ported to OS X and Linux in 2016, and iOS and Android in 2017 and 2018 respectively.

The plot focuses on Max Caulfield, an 18-year-old photography student who discovers that she has the ability to rewind time at any moment, leading her every choice to enact the butterfly effect. She uses this ability to solve the disappearance of a girl named Rachel Amber, and the bizarre tragedies that fall upon the women in her academy. The player's actions can alter the narrative as it unfolds, and the player can in many cases rewind time to choose a different option and thus reshape the story. Fetch quests and making environmental changes represent the forms of puzzle solving in addition to using branching choices for conversation.

Development of the game began in April 2013. It was formed with an episodic structure in mind, for reasons both financial and creative. The developers conducted field research on the setting by traveling to the Pacific Northwest, and subverted known archetypes to make the characters. Player feedback influenced the adjustments made to the episodes. Story and character arc serve as the central point in the game.

Life Is Strange received critical acclaim and was commended for its character development, soundtrack, story, rewind game mechanic, emotional depth, and tackling of taboo subjects. Criticisms included the slang that was used, poor lip-syncing, and tonal inconsistencies in the story. The game garnered over 75 Game of the Year awards and listings, and has reached 20 million players as of November 2023. It is considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time, as well an example of video games as an art form.

A prequel, Life Is Strange: Before the Storm, was released in August 2017, while a remastered version of the game was released as part of the Life Is Strange Remastered Collection in February 2022. A direct sequel, Life Is Strange: Double Exposure, was released in October 2024, with all three titles developed by Deck Nine rather than original developer Dontnod Entertainment.

Gameplay

Life Is Strange is a graphic adventure played from a third-person view. The player takes control of protagonist Max Caulfield, whose time rewinding ability allows the player to redo almost any action that has been taken. The player can examine and interact with objects, which enables puzzle solving in the form of fetch quests and making changes to the environment. Items that are collected before time travelling are kept in the inventory after the fact.

The player can explore various locations in the fictional setting of Arcadia Bay and communicate with non-playable characters. Dialogue exchanges can be rewound while branching options are used for conversation. Once an event is reset, the details provided earlier are permitted to avail themselves in the future. In some instances, choices in dialogue alter and affect the story through short or long-term consequences. For each one of the choices, something good in the short term could turn out worse later.

Plot In October 2013, 18-year-old Maxine "Max" Caulfield (Hannah Telle) returns to Arcadia Bay, Oregon, to attend Blackwell Academy. During her photography class with teacher Mark Jefferson (Derek Phillips), Max experiences a vivid and catastrophic precognition of a tornado destroying a lighthouse and approaching the town. Leaving for the restroom to regain her composure, she takes a photograph of a butterfly on her camera, and then witnesses classmate Nathan Prescott (Nik Shriner) shoot and kill a young woman in a fit of rage. In a sudden effort, Max develops the ability to rewind time and saves the woman, revealed to be her childhood friend Chloe Price (Ashly Burch). The two reunite and visit the lighthouse, where Max reveals her powers to Chloe. Strange weather patterns and other anomalies begin occurring throughout Arcadia Bay.

The next day, Max's class is disrupted when Kate Marsh (Dayeanne Hutton), a fellow student who has been bullied over a viral video depicting her kissing several students at a party, attempts suicide by jumping from the roof of the girls’ dormitory. After rewinding time and reaching the roof, Max either saves Kate or fails to convince her not to jump. Following the incident, Max resolves to uncover what happened to Kate and to Chloe's missing friend Rachel Amber. That night, Max and Chloe break into the principal's office, discovering evidence that implicates Nathan. The following morning, they sneak into the motorhome of drug dealer Frank Bowers (Daniel Bonjour), learning that Rachel had been romantically involved with him, a fact she kept from Chloe. Max later examines a childhood photo of herself and Chloe and is unexpectedly transported back to the day it was taken. She prevents Chloe's father, William (Joe Ochman), from dying in a traffic accident, inadvertently creating an alternate reality in which William is alive but Chloe is paralysed from the neck down due to a separate accident. Heartbroken, Max uses the photo to undo her actions and return to the present timeline.

Continuing their investigation, Max and Chloe discover a bunker beneath a derelict barn owned by the Prescotts, where they find binders containing photos of restrained young women. Among the images are photos of Kate and, to their horror, photographs depicting Rachel's corpse being buried. The pair rush to a scrapyard, where they discover Rachel's remains, devastating Chloe. They later attend a school party to confront Nathan, who sends a text message threatening to destroy the evidence. Returning to the scrapyard, they are ambushed by Jefferson, who anaesthetises Max and kills Chloe with a gunshot to the head. Max awakens in the bunker, where Jefferson reveals himself to be a psychopathic serial killer obsessed with abducting and photographing young women, explaining his desire to "capture the moment innocence turns into corruption." He reveals that Nathan had been acting under his influence and had accidentally killed Rachel by overdosing her. Having murdered Nathan himself, Jefferson plans to kill Max once he has completed photographing her.

Max escapes by entering a photo and returns to the beginning of the week during Jefferson's class. She alerts David Madsen (Don McManus), Chloe's stepfather and Blackwell Academy's head of security, preventing Chloe's death and leading to the arrest of both Jefferson and Nathan. Max travels to San Francisco with Principal Wells in Jefferson’s place, where one of her photographs is displayed in an art gallery. While there, she calls Chloe and realizes that the storm has still reached Arcadia Bay. Max returns to the moment she took the winning photo, leading her through multiple collapsing timelines that manifest as a dream-like nightmare.

Reuniting with Chloe at the lighthouse, Max blames her own decision to save Chloe earlier in the week for causing the storm. Having kept Max's butterfly photo, Chloe then offers Max a final choice: use the photo to rewind time and allow Chloe to be killed to save Arcadia Bay, or remain in the current timeline and allow the town's destruction to save Chloe. Chloe believes that there are people in the town who deserve to live rather than die for her own survival, including her mother Joyce, and implores Max to sacrifice her. Max protests, not wanting to lose her, but Chloe urges her to make the choice. If Max chooses to sacrifice Chloe, she reluctantly returns to the Blackwell restroom at the beginning of the week where she listens as Nathan shoots Chloe dead. Nathan and Jefferson are arrested, the storm never occurs, and Max attends Chloe's funeral with Joyce, David and the rest of the town. If Max chooses to sacrifice Arcadia Bay, she destroys the photo, and she and Chloe watch as the storm devastates the town before dissipating. The next morning, Max and Chloe leave the ruined town together.

Development

Development of Life Is Strange began in April 2013 with a team of 15, and more people were added when the collaboration with Square Enix began. The episodes were originally aimed to release about 6 weeks apart. Dontnod co-founder Jean-Maxime Moris was originally the game's Creative Director. Dontnod told Square Enix London about Life Is Strange only after they had turned down a pitch for a larger game. Before signing with Square Enix, Life Is Strange was imagined as a full-length video game that Dontnod would self-publish. However, the publisher surmised that it would be more successful as an episodic title. The game was originally codenamed What If but the name was not used because of the film with the same name.

A developer diary was published before release that said most prospective publishers were unwilling to publish a game unless it had a male protagonist. They said most publishers had the same objection to Dontnod's first project, Remember Me, which also had a female protagonist. Dontnod CEO Oskar Guilbert also challenged the idea at the start. The developers said Square Enix was the only publisher with no intention of changing this.

Life Is Strange was born from the rewind mechanic idea, which the developer had already experimented on with their last game Remember Me. The lead character Max was created with the ability to rewind time to supplement this mechanism. The episodic format was decided upon by the studio for creative reasons, financial restrictions and marketing purposes, allowing them to tell the story in its preferred slow pace. The Pacific Northwest was picked as the setting for the purpose of conveying a nostalgic and autumnal feel. The development team visited the region, took photographs, looked at local newspapers and used Google Street View to make sure the environment was accurately portrayed. It was decided early on that most of the budget be spent on the writing and voice actors. The original story was written in French by Jean-Luc Cano, and converted into a game script by the co-directors and design team. It was subsequently handed over to Christian Divine and Cano to be fine tuned in English. Story and character development were highlighted over point-and-click puzzles, making choice and consequence integral to how the narrative unfolds. Hannah Telle auditioned for Max Caulfield in July 2014 and was offered the part; Ashly Burch auditioned for both Max and her given role Chloe Price. The recording sessions were done in Los Angeles, California, with the French developer brought in via Skype.