Life is Strange : Before the Storm, A First Love Drama

Life is Strange : Before the Storm, the prequel of the much loved Dontnod narrative game, is this time developed by Deck Nine. The last episode (not counting the bonus episode, Farewell, that recently came out) was released in December 2017. We don’t follow the discrete Max this time but her punk best friend, Chloe Price, some years before the first game, on her first encounter with the mysterious Rachel Amber.

Chloe’s Gameplay is perfect for her

“Backtalk Challenge” example

This time there are some little modifications in the gameplay, since Chloe doesn’t have any sort of time rewind power like the previous game's protagonist. She only has her rebellious mind and her sharp tongue to manage her way through the adult world. You still have the numerous dialogues with choices, some of them unlocked by exploring your environment and learning info about the subject. But the nature of Chloe really shines through the “Backtalk Challenge”. This new feature is another type of dialogue with choices where you have to be attentive at what you answer to your opponent, often to convince them to let you do something. Your answers should use what they told you before to really use it against them. Even if it remains an illusion of choice, by impacting mostly only the few sentences right after the dialogue, it’s a great way to make the characters’ personality show through the gameplay !

In kind of the same way, you can easily spot the fact that she’s still in a transition phase, not really sure of what she wants, just by looking a bit around her bedroom. For example, you can see an old pirate hat and some other childhood mementos. You can even tear a fantasy poster off to express your rage under it with a marker. It clearly reveals that Chloe wants to get away from her child-like self by trying to become a “hardcore” adult.

After all, this sixteen year old rebellious teenager has been abandoned by her best friend and lost her father not so long after that. It’s been 2 years now. And now she feels abandoned by her mother too because she found a new boyfriend who is nothing like how her father was. As I write these words, I’m aware that this must really sounds pretty cringy and edgy. But even if this game could be called Gay Rebel Teenager Simulator 2017, I can’t prevent myself from loving this character that, in my opinion, has much more depth than what we could think at first glance.

A Human Character

I had to take some distance from this game to realize that I actually liked it, despite the kinda cheesy aspect. I don’t know if everyone would have the same sensation but I projected myself in Chloe because she reminded me much of my shameful teen years. My experiences aren't far from these and that’s mostly why I think I cringed most of the time. If I could go back and meet my old self, I would probably shake her up and that’s what I often wanted to do as I played, because even if you can make many choices, the character stays mostly the same.

And because I had most of these irrational reactions myself, I can’t deny that these flaws makes the character of Chloe more human. I understand why some people simply hate her or Rachel (who would not exactly be my bosom buddy either) because no one can love everyone, some of her flaws can bother us or not as well as her way of being that speaks to us or, again, not.

In this game we follow two teenagers who are searching a way to escape from their sad little life in their sad little town. They both have a sense of adventure that is increased by the fact that their parents deceived them so they feel like they don’t have any attachment anymore.

Chloe’s mother tries to make her mourning fade away by having a new romance, but her daughter hates her new boyfriend, and Rachel has seen her father kissing another woman than her mom. Notice that the two betrayals are romance related…

Like I said above, you can clearly see that the two girls are still searching for themselves during the game just by looking at their room. They want to become more adult but they keep their reassuring childhood stuff, because they feel a bit lost with all their feelings. Clearly, like any other human teenager.

What made me really relate to the story and characters is how they depicted the burgeoning relationship between the two girls. Again, it feels human and real. Unlike a basic romanticized fiction, though they are cliché despite their social differences. I mean, on one hand, Chloe’s mother’s job as a waitress in a diner makes it hard to make ends meet, the girl has already got some warnings from school and she does drugs. On the other, you got a perfect little girl who has high grades, a rich family with a huge house and is pretty popular among her schoolmates. But naturally, they find similarities in their differences, like any basic human with a minimum of empathy.

We can also discern the complexity of their characters by seeing how their dawning relationship often leads to some awkwardness between them, sometimes silences and ambiguous looks, sometimes haste and lack of subtlety. For example the train scene, where you can see how they learn about each other by playing some silly games of questions instead of directly asking them. Even the direction and gameplay greatly insist on their closeness by making them physically closer and choosing to share things with the other.

I will be honest there, I don’t really think you can play the whole game really convinced that these two are just simple friends and I happily went for the queer route.

Some LGBT Depictions

I understand that some people found their relationship a bit forced, especially if you look at the previous game but that’s mostly because this prequel had the courage to go where the other just preferred to slightly suggest it and finally make a diversion with potential but out of place straight relationship. Seriously who could have thought that Rachel had some kind of relationship with Frank, just because he had her precious bracelet when you see how the other characters talk about her and Chloe and all her desperate acts to find her ? You don’t even understand in what way she could have even been friends with him since they never see each other except for when he helps her and Chloe against Damon Merrick. But here I prefer examining Before the Storm without thinking too much of the incoherence between the two games... And without thinking about the fact that Rachel will inevitably die… One more gay couple that won’t live happily ever after ! It’s not like it’s anything unusual (go see the Bury your gays and Hide your lesbians trope if you don’t know what I’m talking about here). I also liked the fact they added another queer character that totally accepts her sexuality without displaying it to everyone like “Hey look I’m Steph and I’m a gay character ! Hey have you noticed me ? I’m gay !”. I tend to hate this sort of character as they try to act like it’s something special and seems forced, while it’s just something that should be considered as normal as being red haired or wearing glasses.

The game does a great job in showing how their relationship evolves. The first episode is mostly based on its birth and growth, but the climax of their relationship appears in the second episode with the great theater and aftershow scene ! In this scene, you replace one of the play’s actresses opposite to Rachel, she suddenly decides to change some of her lines to match with her desire to run away with Chloe. It's not a show anymore, the girls are talking to each other in hidden messages, displaying their feelings in front of everyone with only them really understanding what truly hides behind their words. It’s a beautiful scene in my opinion because as players, we can see that their connection is so obvious and so strong, that they finally stop suggesting their love with suppositions or hints. After the show, the fact that you can make Chloe ask Rachel for a kiss to seal the big promise they made each other is one more meaningful way to involve the player inside this relationship.

It’s pretty unusual to have such intense homosexual romance scenes in video games so I was pleasantly surprised by it, especially since I knew that in the first game they never went as far. And no, this kiss has nothing to do with the kind of little kiss Max can give to Chloe in a relaxed way. But even if it’s still unusual to have a homosexual relationship as a main focus in a game, there’s already some games that are queer friendly.

In term of lesbian relationships (even if it’s never really depicted in front of us) I immediately thought of Gone Home, that has an interesting way of telling a story. In this game, you discover the life of your sister at the same time as your character who has been absent for a long time from her home. She has been to high-school and discovered her sexuality quite in the same way as Chloe and Rachel in Before the Storm. She became friend with a girl she finds really cool and they became quite more than that over time. They’re living their love in secret the much as they can until the sister's lover, Lonnie, must leave for the army. And then, there's the reason why I think this game is a bit too romanticized. Anybody with a minimum of reasoning wouldn’t abandon their biggest dream for a teenage crush !

A bit less focused on that aspect but still progressive, there's Bioware and Bethesda’s games like Dragon Age, Mass Effect or Fallout which offer the players interesting choices in terms of relationships with the characters. These games are the most realistic in terms of genders and sexuality in my opinion. Some characters are Bi, some Hetero, some Gay... They even got some Transgenders in the most recent iterations! I think it’s a risky but really interesting way to do so because some games simply say “Alright everyone is bi” but we all know it’s not the case in real life. By including diverse sexuality inside their character, it forges them and make the universe you fight in, far more coherent.

To conclude, Life is Strange : Before the Storm is a progressive game with a well written story and well written characters that can make you feel strong emotions, in a good or a bad way, depending on your state of mind while playing it, but it will always shake you.

You will either hate or love the characters and the edgy ambiance but don’t forget teenage drama with important matters like mourning and becoming adult is what makes the Life is Strange a great narrative game series that makes you think about it's subjet.