Spoiler warning: This piece contains plot details of Life Is Strange: Reunion.
“The moment you saw her, she was all that mattered,” a heart-broken Safi chokes out to Max part way through Life Is Strange: Reunion, “You forgot all about me.” She is, of course, referencing the much-publicized return of the original Life Is Strange‘s Chloe Price. This line is more than only Safi’s degrading admission; in its echoes we also hear the resigned cries of developer Deck Nine to its own fanbase. But first we—like Max—need to rewind. In 2015, Don’t Nod Entertainment released Life Is Strange. The story follows a young girl with the power to rewind time (Max Caulfield) and her friend/lover (Chloe Price) as they race against the clock to stop a disaster from destroying the game’s central setting, a task that includes looking into a shady student society and uncovering faculty secrets. It then ends with a powerful and consequential decision between sacrificing Chloe or the setting of Arcadia Bay. The game was immediately adored, with fans falling in love with Max and Chloe.
Don’t Nod released Life Is Strange 2 in 2018. While well-received, it never garnered the same adoration as the original, in large part because it did not continue the story of Max and Chloe. The franchise was then handed over to Deck Nine, which had “proven itself” by developing 2017’s Before the Storm, a prequel to the 2015 original starring Chloe Price.
Emboldened by its role as franchise steward, Deck Nine released 2021’s True Colors. It introduced players to an entirely new setting with a new cast of characters. While a remarkable achievement that has (in this critic’s opinion) some of the best character work and storytelling in any Life Is Strange game, True Colors—like Life Is Strange 2 before it—never approached the pedestal that the fandom puts the original game on. Even compared to Life Is Strange 2 the game was found lacking, perhaps because it did not have the benefit of coming from the original creators of the series.
With 2024’s Double Exposure, Deck Nine attempted to lean into what longtime fans clearly craved: a connection to the first game. This came in the form of Max’s return. Now older, she has moved forward from the events of 2015’s Life Is Strange, becoming a working artist and instructor in the new setting of Caledon University. Double Exposure also introduced players to Safi, Max’s closest friend at Caledon and the person who, like Chloe before her, Max spends the game trying to save from disaster. Despite being billed as a true sequel to the original, It was quickly derided by fans, most notably for how it supposedly butchered and disrespected Max’s history with Chloe. Deck Nine later apologized to disgruntled fans for these perceived missteps.
That brings us to the present and Life Is Strange: Reunion. It is a wish-fullfillment-laden finale for Max and Chloe that gives fans everything they have been clamoring for. It is also Life Is Strange at its most disappointing; the product of Deck Nine at its most defeatist.
Reunion picks up a few months after 2024’s Double Exposure, in which Max stops a storm from destroying Caledon University, saves Safi, and merges two realities. The story follows—this might sound familiar—a girl with the power to rewind time (Max Caulfield) and her ex-friend/lover (Chloe Price, back regardless of your decision at the end of Life Is Strange) as they race against the clock to stop a disaster from destroying the game’s central setting, a task that includes looking into a shady student society and uncovering faculty secrets.
While Reunion keeps Double Exposure‘s setting of Caledon University, the numerous hanging threads left by that game are thrown to the side in favor of rehashing the same broad strokes of the original Life Is Strange. Any romance that Max initiated in Double Exposure is ended off-screen prior to Reunion to clear the way for Chloe. How did Caledon react to surviving the massive storm? They have storm amnesia. Did Safi find any other powered individuals when she left campus? No. Most of the supporting cast’s roles are reduced to exposition so that the focus can be put squarely on Chloe’s return.
Both narratively and mechanically, Reunion plays the hits—even if they are tired. Using rewind as Max and backtalk as Chloe are chores that have lost their luster. The central mystery of who started a campus-destroying fire is underbaked, and twists along the way to the final reveal are doled out with little fanfare and often don’t make much sense. This is, yet again, a result of the game’s central focus on Max and Chloe.
One of the only original ideas Reunion introduces is the decision to make Max and Chloe dual protagonists. Key conversations throughout the game will let you decide what both say. This doesn’t give the series’ love of player choice even more depth, but turns these characters into puppets. It’s almost as if Deck Nine is throwing its hands up in response to criticism of Double Exposure. “You don’t think the developer can be trusted? Don’t worry, it’s in your hands now,” Reunion says. The pair get some moments to talk through their shared trauma (though explanations as to how and why both Chloe and Arcadia Bay are alive and well are handwaved away quickly) as well as tooth-achingly sweet moments sure to make fans squeal, but it all feels empty. Max and Chloe feel like flat reproductions of their 2015 selves, frozen in the moment fans never want them to leave.
In stark contrast to this is Safi, who shines every time she’s on screen despite being demoted to a supporting role. As a remnant of Double Exposure not tied down to the nostalgia that holds back Max and Chloe, Safi is afforded something rare in Reunion: depth. Safi (conducting her own investigation in parallel to Max and Chloe) is characterized as unpredictable, unstable, unknowable. She’s a liability that threatens to destabilize Caledon. But Reunion reveals Safi’s motivations to be rooted in her love for Max, even if she will always come second. This somber reckoning is brought to life by Olivia AbiAssi, turning in the game’s best performance (and it isn’t even close). When Safi is on screen we briefly believe these characters are people rather than caricatures. She is Life Is Strange: Reunion‘s humanity.
In the end, regardless of whether Caledon and its residents avoid or succumb to the fire’s destruction has no bearing on Max and Chloe’s relationship. Buildings can burn, Safi can die, and Max and Chloe still get their happy ending. Reunion sends the pair on the road with Caledon in the rearview mirror as they head back to where it all began: Arcadia Bay.
This finale comes at the cost of Deck Nine willingly burning down everything it has built. After years of the Life Is Strange fandom deriding each subsequent entry it developed and refusing to accept Don’t Nod’s exit, Deck Nine lets the fans have their happy ending regardless of whether or not it makes for a good game or feels true for the characters. What little fight Deck Nine has left goes into Safi, a character the developer can lay total claim to and use as its voice. “I should be enough for you” Safi pleads to Max, knowing she never will be.
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