Life is Strange: Reunion (2026)

I was in the minority of people that fairly liked Life Is Strange: Double Exposure, and by looking at the reviews on here, I’m in the somewhat minority of feeling that this game was meh. You can really tell that this instalment was not only rushed but served predominantly as a way to garner good will with fans after how messy Double Exposure (DE) was and both games suffer as a result for that.

So many elements of DE are scrapped for the sake of brining back Chloe. I can’t say the same for the Amanda romance path, but the Vinh romance is killed off screen before the game even starts and does so only to allow Chloe and Max to potentially rekindle their relationship. While I don’t hate this and this was where I took their relationship myself in my playthrough, it massively undermines so much time and investment from the previous instalment. On top of that, Amanda and Max, from my memory and playthrough, only have 1 scene/interaction in this entire game and Amanda just gets completely shafted as a character in general. On top of that, Diamond, despite her arc of becoming Abraxas President seeming to be of importance by the end of DE, is written out of the game completely and supposedly joins Safi, who abandons her mission to find others with powers to return to Caledon for seemingly no apparent reason. It felt like the characters’ directions were dictated by what the plot required of them regardless of if it was a natural progression for them.

How a lot of the characters are handled in general is another issue I have with the game. None of the new characters are really all that interesting which doesn’t work when one of them, Ren, is apart of setting fire to Calderon and many of them are casualties of said fire. There’s no time to build emotional connections to these characters and weight to their actions when they each get a few scenes and that’s it (referring here to Noelle, Joey, Ren, and Owen). Vinh’s involvement of the fire somewhat makes sense but feels like a barebones understanding of his character was in mind to justify his actions and it also doesn’t help that if you fail to accuse him, you don’t figure out why he does what he does. The game just completely leaves it unresolved which works as a reality for the situation and what the characters would go to but Vinh’s reasoning is not necessarily foreshadowed well for the audience to put two and two together without explicit explanation needed.

There are elements to the game that I did like however. I did like seeing Max and Chloe reunited and while I don’t necessarily think that where they end up character arc wise entirely justifies a whole new entry that scraps a lot of what came before it, it was fun actually seeing them get to have their happy ending. The lake scene was the highlight of the game in my opinion and one that showed best Deck Nine’s understanding of Dont Nod’s original characters. I also really liked the investigative aspect and how much really does boil down to you paying attention and finding clues to stop the fire as the game doesn’t really have your back if you fail to figure things out entirely. I will also say that it was just enjoyable to play through and I didn’t find myself bored, even if I wasn’t as compelled to come back to the game as frequently as I was with previous entries.

I feel like the biggest hinderance to the game is time. It feels incredibly rushed and rewritten due to fan response to Double Exposure and also way too short to fully let its story and characters breathe. Issues that I mentioned above like characters getting sidelined or being uninteresting would have been fixed with another hour or two added to the game’s runtime. It’s also weird that bringing in Chloe and her Backtalk ability, at least for my playthrough, only allows for it to be used a few times throughout the whole game. It feels like a waste and doubles down on this by being a mechanic that ends completely once you fail one stage. Again, improved timing could have helped with this.

I feel like at least for the moment, the series should be left alone and the new instalment, when there inevitably is one, should be focused on new characters and have a lot more thought put into its direction. There’s no way that this was the ending planned by Deck Nine from first starting production on Double Exposure.

Haven't returned to this series since the original in 2015, it's a weird feeling when just watching a friend play Reunion can take you straight back to that moment over 10 years ago.

The animations and voice acting is really well done, and seeing Max and Chloe reunite reminded me why I got so invested in the first game. I loved their relationship and growth in the original, this is making me interested in checking out all the games that have come out in-between.

All the complaining about DE plus just being busy and broke at the time made me skip it despite being a huge fan of lis classic to the point that I played through it 6 times. I have played and enjoyed every single lis game, dlc and spinoff up through true colors, read all the comics, and enjoyed all of them. Though 2 was a weak point it was still a good game. I just didn't connect as much with it.

I admit I got swept up in the rage of my favorite ship being sunk. I know we have to make every choice work in the sequel but a future where max and Chloe didn't work out? No. Wasn't having it. But that was my mistake. When I saw my favorite couple was coming back I thought obviously they churned out a quick game to appease the fans. But no. There's no way they put this together so fast. This was the plan all along and having played it, it brings it all together. The story still fits. The writing is strong. This is still my lis. These are still my max and Chloe. And after going back and checking out DE in a marathon of manic fandom energy, I love Safi too. She's Max's Rachel. I get it.

I never should have doubted this series

Slept on it and I think Reunion ended up being great! Super deft narratively, consistently really funny, and along with Before the Storm it's got one of the most nuanced and believable explorations of long-term suicidality I've seen in any bit of media. Given the circumstances it's pretty much the best possible sendoff I could've dreamed of for Chloe and Max, and I hope the team behind it gets a chance to dream up something new.

Entirely subjective ranking of the Life is Strange series (and some of its spiritual siblings):

1. True Colors
2. Before the Storm
3. LiS1
4. Reunion
5. Middle volumes of the comics
6. Lost Records: Bloom and Rage
7. LiS2
8. Double Exposure
9. Tell Me Why
10. First volume of the comics

Still haven't read the final issues of the comics, or any of the True Colors ones! Kinda like having them in my back pocket for a rainy day.

Still early days, but this has been surprisingly lovely so far! Max having her time travel powers back is a much better fit for her busybody character, reusing the perfectly serviceable setting from Double Exposure cuts down on a lot of introductory pace-killers, and the script has some solid gags here and there. Very much appreciate that the plot almost immediately lets you loose to start solving a mystery, and it seems like the game might even be lightly backpedaling on the tedious sequel hook introduced in DE. Feeling optimistic!

Also, Chloe Price has purchased herself a "Before Sunset" vanity license plate, unlocking new levels of lesbian yearning previously unknown to science.

This comes out tomorrow, and frankly I think it's got zero shot of being very good. There's just far too many conflicting narrative threads at play, across over a decade of games, and Double Exposure is far too flimsy a foundation to build a direct sequel upon.

As ever though, I'm sure it'll be goofy fun hanging out with Max as the lead, and I'm pretty excited to see Rhianna DeVries reprise her take on Chloe Price. If it's not a total disaster I'm gonna count that as a win.

I suppose after I posted my observations that critics were mulling over their thoughts about marketing claiming that LiS: Reunion was "made by and for fans" this was inevitable and that at least one of those critics put those thoughts down into an essay:

A Game Doesn't Need To Be ‘By And For Fans’

I'm not going to cherry-pick passages to try to convey the gist of the argument, as I think this article warrants reading in full because there are some very thoughtful reflections contained within.