Life is Strange is a video game of the ‘coming of age’ genre developed by Dontnod Entertainment. While the game caters to an 18+ audience, its storyline, through the existential journey of its protagonist, Maxine Caulfield (Max), has a broader appeal (I should know, I’m not a teenager anymore!). The first game was released in 2015, it’s not a new one, but if you join the party late, I don’t want to reveal all the details, so I’ll only highlight the key aspects for me.
The game consists of 5 separate chapters, meaning you can buy them individually. Each chapter offers the player to experience Max’s everyday life through her actions, choices, and decisions while her journal reveals her thoughts, feelings, and memories. The game progresses, to some extent, according to the choices we make as we embody Max. But, irrespective of the path followed, every player faces the same dilemma.
The overall story
The game portrays the life of a few students in an upscale boarding school in Arcadia Bay (a fictitious town). The protagonist, Maxine (Max) Caulfield, is an introvert who has difficulty fitting in among her peers. Yet, she has a keen eye and always spots the unperceivable, which she immortalises with her camera. The other main character is Chloe Price. The first chapter sets the tone when in class, Max has a vision; she sees a tornado destroying a lighthouse. Needing to escape the horror, she takes refuge in the school bathroom, but she witnesses Chloe getting shot there. This event triggers Max’s power; she can rewind time. Having the ability to rewind time also means that she has the responsibility to prevent Cloe’s murder. Once Max saves Chloe, she also changes the story. Now, Max is facing repercussions, and Chloe comes to save Max in the parking lot. As the game is built on the backdrop of the interplay between Max and Chloe, players also travel between the two world possibilities; one in which Chloe lives and one in which she doesn’t.
The sense of agency
The notions of autonomy, agency, and freedom are essential to Sartre, who said: ‘we are a choice’[1]. With choice comes change, hence transformation, which is exploited through Max’s transition to adulthood. In the first episode, ‘Chrysalis’, Max writes in her journal, ‘I am trying to climb out of my cocoon’. Each situation in which Max must decide on a course of action serves as a catalyst for her growth. She transforms every time she rewinds time and chooses a different option to save her friend. With every choice, she removes a layer of childhood; adulthood is inescapable. But Max is afraid of growing up. It means more and more choices to be made and more consequences to face. In episode 2, ‘Out of Time’, another dimension appears; Max is getting lost in an emotional turmoil (and so did I); she realises that she needs to account for ‘others’, for her decisions and actions also impact them. Echoing Sartre, who stated that “An individual act engages all humanity”[2], Max understands that this cycle of influence between her and others is also unavoidable because she is contingent on them and vice versa.
It could be counterintuitive to suggest that video games represent agentic spaces where players benefit from total freedom of choice. The game remains somewhat ‘pre-determined’ since its design is articulated around a limited series of potential if-then scenarios. However, isn’t it the same in the physical world? We live in a world full of constraints, yet, we make daily choices. What if video games, through trial and error, could provide us with the required practice to choose wisely?
The plot is set against uneasy topics
Although the game addresses transversal subjects such as friendships, school violence, and bullying, the storyline opens the door to what it is to experience these topics at school. Time is a common feature in video games, yet, its association with the sense of agency in Life is Strange makes for a compelling exploration of heavier topics like death, grief, gender, identity, and responsibility. The game relies on mechanics such as fetch quests, puzzles, and branching choices to build a narrative around morality and ethics. Progressing through the game, I was transported into a drama that surprised me. Regardless of choice, I was meant to have two-sided experiences:
- The burden of responsibility that goes along with making choices.
- The crush of having to find one’s place where no space seems available.
- The desire to make friends when nobody gets you.
- The joy of having a good friend and the destruction that comes with loss.
- The power to make different choices and realise they never impact the outcome.
- The ability to do the right thing while knowing that if I do, all the above points will be shattered.
The plot is rooted in what is unalterable, that is, in the sacrifice that must be made. Ultimately, being the player, I had to decide who I’d rather sacrifice, Chloe or Arcadia Bay? As Sartre said: “When we say that man chooses himself, we mean that each person chooses himself, but also that by choosing himself, a person chooses all humans”[3].
No matter how often I said to myself that it was just a game, I had to get out of it many times; I needed time to reflect and process the consequences of my choice.
There is a twist.
If you decide to save Arcadia, you return to the first episode, but there is no more story between Max and Chloe. Instead you have to deal with Rachel, who is upset with the world (or just Max) for having been sacrificed when she was known as Chloe.
All in all, I appreciated the simplicity of the game, which offset the seriousness of some of the scenarios. The characters, their voices, and the terrific soundtrack absorbed me completely; At times, I had to extricate myself from the experience to resume playing.
In brief, playing felt very natural.
[1] Sartre (1943/2003) Being and Nothingness.
[2] Sartre (1946/2007) Existentialism is a Humanism.
[3] Ibid.
