Life Is Strange: Before the Storm

Since Life Is Strange was so well received, Square Enix (most likely) wanted to expand the franchise. Dontnod Entertainment wasn't quite ready yet to continue the series, however, and instead the task was handed to Deck Nine.

A third party prequel

Life Is Strange: Before the Storm is a prequel -- as one familiar with the series can guess from the title -- set two or three years before Life Is Strange. You play as 16-year-old Chloe and get to experience, among other things, how she met Rachel, the girl who goes missing later on.

I expected the plot to be more tied to that but Before the Storm doesn't even mention the villain of Life Is Strange. Instead the game has its own story. It does, however, show a brief moment from the infamous black room at the end. And somehow that short clip felt far more sinister than the place ever did with Max in Life Is Strange. I think it's because I now knew Rachel and her fate wasn't just something that happened to some faceless person. Max also had her time rewinding power and could be all "eat shit and die", while Rachel had to be completely helpless.

Instead of Unreal Engine 3, Before the Storm was developed using Unity. Tech-wise it's far from the worst Unity game I've experienced: it runs smoothly, loading times are short -- instantaneous even when reloading a checkpoint. You can't turn off chromatic aberration, however, and the game's anti-aliasing causes a lot of shimmering edges. There are many intro videos too that you need to mod out in order to skip them -- just renaming or deleting them won't do.

I assume they were still able to reuse a lot of the already created assets like the locations of the Blackwell Academy campus, Price residence, and the junkyard.

At the end of first episode of Before the Storm I still had hope that the game could be as great as Dontnod's. But unfortunately Deck Nine couldn't pull it off. While the first game had its problems, it still had plenty of interesting and satisfactory moments. Before the Storm on the other hand is mostly just... not all that engaging.

I think it being a prequel didn't help; no decision can change already known facts. For instance, any option to be less hostile towards Chloe's stepdad, David, felt pointless since that's not how things were in Life Is Strange in my experience. What could've been a great scene, when Elliot challenges Chloe to doubt Rachel, also fails if you've played the first game. There's no doubt because you know how things will go.

At least Chloe herself has room for personal growth within the story. She isn't yet as sure of herself as she appears three years later and still winging it.

Chloe can't rewind time but she can backtalk to people. Backtalking is a mini-game of a timed dialogue battle in which you need to choose responses that are tied to what the other person said last. I always chose to backtalk given the option and beat every single one. Thus I don't even know what happens if you fail a mandatory one.

I liked how Deck Nine acknowledged the use of the word 'hella' in the first game. Apparently Chloe learned it from Rachel who says it's a Cali thing. Also, another detail I noticed was when Chloe and Rachel were playing two truths and one lie game, and one of the facts Rachel tells is that she is ambidextrous. I found it odd that Chloe didn't mention being so herself.

I don't know how attentive people generally are for other people's handedness but I think I notice immediately if someone uses their left hand for writing or drawing. So I naturally made a mental note when Chloe suddenly used a different hand when drawing one of her graffiti tags she leaves at places. And she keeps switching the hand throughout the game.

I'm far from being the only one who has noticed this. Chloe's handedness is apparently inconsistent even though Dontnod confirmed in a tweet for her to be left-handed. It's one of those things in video games that you shouldn't pay too much attention to because it is so easy for one developer to accidentally change something.

On the stats of the final, 3rd episode, there's one choice, or rather, a result of handful of choices that 0% of players have (probably rounded down though). Apparently no one managed to carry all the money found in the game and give it to charity. Given that it's a possibility only shows how little choices matter in the game.

Subpar voice work

What further pushed Before the Storm into a poor experience for me was the terrible voice acting. The voice actor strike of 2016-2017 prevented Deck Nine from using union people. Thus every single one of the many returning characters was voiced by someone new. You can tell they were truly scraping the bottom of the barrel. Especially Rachel's parents were god-awful.

In one scene Chloe gets roped into a theater play and it could've been so great! But Chloe's voice acting was so mediocre. The audience liked it for some reason though.

Also, if the glimpse into the dark room didn't make you feel bad enough, there's a short Farewell bonus episode, a prequel to the prequel. It takes place just before Max is about to move to Seattle with her parents and she has trouble telling Chloe about it. The good thing about the episode is that Chloe's and Max's original voices, Ashly Burch and Hannah Telle,were able to return to reprise their roles.

The sad thing about the episode is how it ends. When Chloe wondered where her parents were for they should've been back already, I suddenly realized what the episode would end on. It's such a shitty, sad way to say farewell to the characters. It helps the thickest of people to understand what Chloe's been through and why she is like she is, but I personally could've been without it.

Before the Storm left a bitter taste in my mouth. Deck Nine probably did their best but the game still felt like a cheap cash grab to me.

Dontnod got back to Life Is Strange eventually and two episodes of the actual sequel have been released thus far. Even though set in the same "universe", it is however a whole new story and cast of characters. It doesn't seem that interesting to me. It would've been way cooler if they had continued with Max and Chloe instead. I guess Dontnod felt they were finished with them or the ending of Life Is Strange was just too difficult to continue from.