Most video games are centred around the most important journey of the central character’s life. We follow their epic adventure from start to finish, through highs and lows and all that falls in between. This is true of the first Life is Strange, where we pick up with photography student Max Caulfield just as she realises she can rewind time. On a related note, she also learns that her town is in danger of being destroyed by a deadly storm, and must use these powers to save it.
This coincides with some non-magical events that really make this the most important time in Max’s life. She falls in love for the first time (technically a choice between Warren and Chloe, though Chloe is so crucial to the narrative it is regarded as canon), and she discovers her teacher is capturing, molesting, and photographing her fellow students. These three journeys are indelibly linked, leading to the iconic final choice to sacrifice Chloe to save the town, or to sacrifice the town to save Chloe.
Life is Strange: Double Exposure does not follow its protagonist through the most important time of their life, as it once again follows Max. Games – indeed, all fictional journeys – have sequels frequently, so this is not too shocking. But Double Exposure did not feel like a continuation of Max’s story, but a dredging of her bones to coerce fans into purchase. Now, with the reveal that Life is Strange: Reunion will see Chloe return in a direct continuation of Double Exposure’s story, it feels as if the same trick is being pulled twice.
Double Exposure Should Never Have Used Max Caulfield
I did not care for how Double Exposure treated Chloe. If she died in Life is Strange, then fair enough, she’s still dead here. Max did what you might call objectively the right thing in not trading one life for hundreds, and mourns her dearly departed. But if she lived, if the most wondrous, tragic journey of Max’s life culminated in her being unable to surrender the soul of her true love into the clutches of death in a romance for the ages, then yeah they broke up somewhere I guess funny story haha now do you want to bone the too cool for you bartender or the douchey assistant in this one?
I understand that, in real life, your first love is not always your true love. Teenagers go through tumultuous relationships that feel written in the stars then break up a few years later all the time. But Life is Strange is not real life, and it presented a story with a very distinct ending. It led to one of the best known and best loved choices in gaming: Bay or Bae.
Amazon Prime’s Life Is Strange Series May Have Found Its Max Caulfield
The stars align?
It then seemed to be written out for convenience, for a story that doesn’t really belong to Max – she doesn’t even have the same powers! Now, it’s being written back in, also for convenience. Max’s new power sees her slip between two different timelines, although not as seamlessly as her rewind powers worked. It does, in isolation, make sense to bring Chloe back with those powers.
After all, there is a timeline where she survived, and a timeline where she died. But it feels like Chloe has been turned into a mascot. And while I disagreed with the decision to hand wave Chloe’s break-up away, I did somewhat respect that a real choice had been made instead of a cop out. Now, the cop out has landed.
Chloe’s Return Causes More Problems Than It Solves
There are also a lot of issues raised by bringing Chloe back – issues that were already present in Double Exposure. We knew these girls best as free spirited teenagers, precursors of the quirk chungus age who were endearing in their cringefest loaded language. I still find myself using ‘hella’ or ‘shaka brah’ and recalling Life is Strange, not because I think it’s cool – if I ever did – but because I love recalling the feeling of that game. One that was truly, inescapably itself.
Aging these characters up comes with difficulties, as we discovered with Max. Lean away from this sort of language, and it’s not really Max (or Chloe) any more. Lean into it, and they seem too old to be talking this way. It also feels more forced – a game that is not truly itself, but one that is endlessly aping its more successful sibling in the hopes of success via osmosis.
The dialogue clips we’ve seen of Chloe in the gameplay trailer only highlight these fears.
This all underlines the whole problem. Max and Chloe’s story had been told, and told well. Writing another chapter for Max with Double Exposure was already misguided, and this feels like an attempt to fix it. Either that or Chloe is being dredged just as Max was, to sell a game off the back of her name.
Given the closeness between this game and Double Exposure, we can surmise this has either been rushed out using a lot of already designed locations (which feels like the fix it approach), or was always in the pipeline either to double down on the success of Max’s return or act as a safety net for its failure.
Either way, Life is Strange should have moved on from Max and Chloe by now. And it had – Sean Diaz and Alex Chen both led fantastic entries in the series. But now Max and Chloe are back again, and fans are expected to celebrate. Only this doesn’t feel like a glorious return. It feels like we’re being haunted by their ghosts.
- Released
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March 26, 2026
- ESRB
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M For Mature 17+
- Developer(s)
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Deck Nine
- PC Release Date
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March 26, 2026
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
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March 26, 2026
