Last week, I attended a preview event for the new Life is Strange game: Life is Strange: Reunion. During the event, I played the game for about an hour and a half. This is my experience of my first time with Life Is Strange: Reunion. (Be careful — light spoilers ahead!)
Strange Things
Before I start describing my experience at Caledon University, I would like to highlight two things. Firstly, I would like to mention that I played a preview build of the game, rather than the finished product. Furthermore, Life is Strange games are always story-centric, and as this game is a sequel, it has some story elements that carry over from previous games. I was therefore offered a choice. What should the starting point of the story be? I was given four options, so I let fate decide my background. I picked one of the D4s I had lying around my desk for Dungeons & Dragons, and then I got my answer: Chloe and Max would be friends, and Chloe would have died. This wasn’t what I would usually have picked for this story, but it made things more interesting in the end. My story would offer a different perspective to the more popular choice, so you can compare it with another preview (after reading this one, of course) to see the impact this choice has on the story.
The preview begins with an introduction to the story of Reunion. Max Caulfield is now teaching photography at Caledon University. After a weekend away, she returns to find the campus on fire, with her close friends trying to escape. As she watches them being consumed by the flames, she finds an old photo taken a few days earlier, and uses her powers to go back in time to the moment the photo was taken. For those who are new to Life is Strange, it is important to know that Max has the power to go back in time while keeping her memories of what happened. She can do this in the recent past or by looking at a photo from a past event in which she was present.
Max decides not to leave for the weekend after all, but to stay and investigate the fire. This is where the demo truly begins.
Snapping turtles and abandoned homes
The demo starts with a comedy tryout by a friend of Max’s at the bar where she works, the Snapping Turtle. As the event is attended by many college staff and students, she decides it is the perfect place to investigate the coming fire. I got to explore the bar as Max and search for clues. After a while, the stand-up show started, but a heckler kept interrupting it. This gave me my first chance to use my powers. I created a diversion to let him step away from the conversation. If you successfully save the show, you will notice that Lucas Colmero (a character from LiS: Double Exposure) is also in the bar. After talking to him, I found out that there was a plan to expand Caladan University. You put the pieces together and head out towards an abandoned house. Cut to Chloe.
In my version of the story, Chloe is looking for her friend Max. She is haunted by a nightmare in which Max kills her, so she wants to find out more. She arrives at the bar where her friend was just moments ago, but an argument at the entrance prevents her from entering. You break in and sit down at the bar, only to be confronted by security later that night. I then had to talk my way out of a tricky situation, and the success of my arguments was indicated by a status bar that moved in favour of either Chloe or the agent. Being the great conversationalist that I am, I naturally lost the argument and fled. Having learned Max’s location, I left.
Max is currently searching the basement of an abandoned dormitory building. She finds some clues, but is interrupted by one of her students who has also come to snoop around the old house. After a brief chat, she agrees to keep quiet. But then they sense another presence in the building. It turns out that construction workers are trying to blow the place up. You need to defuse the situation by finding and disconnecting all the C4 charges in the basement. Make use of your rewind abilities and the items you find to do so. This led to a thrilling timed puzzle, with Max escaping and Chloe finding her. This reunited them once again.
The following morning at Max’s house, the final part of the demo allowed me to control both characters and witness an emotional conversation between them. In my version of the demo, it was revealed that Chloe had died in real life, but had experienced an alternate life. She toured with Max while working as a band manager. This led them to a character named Safi, the main antagonist of Double Exposure, who is clearly connected to all of this. The characters decided to team up and look for answers, as well as for Safi, who may be involved in this whole situation. But I will have to wait for answers. However, I will have to wait until the full release to find out what happens, because that is where the demo ended.
Early impressions
Overall, I had a great time experiencing Life is Strange: Reunion. The characters and dialogue were well written and went well with the soundtrack. The Snapping Turtle felt extremely cosy — like a bar where I could spend the whole evening with friends — and, on the contrary, the bomb sequence in the abandoned building drove the urgency of the situation home perfectly. The transitions between Max and Chloe were seamless, as were the scenes in which I influenced the choices of both characters simultaneously. If this is an indication of the overall quality, I think this release will undoubtedly be eagerly awaited by longtime Life is Strange fans. Many thanks again to Square Enix for letting me take part in this event. I can’t wait for March 26th to see the full story play out.
