Dontnod Entertainment's 'Life is Strange': Exploring the Endings (Part 1/3)

Dontnod Entertainment's interactive game "Life is Strange" is currently taking over my thoughts, so where am I entitled to puke out everything? Obviously HERE!!! This will be a three-part blog post, because I have a quite a lot to say about this game, and I don't want to combine it into one mile-long post. I know I'm silently notorious for that.

[SPOILER ALERT for Life is Strange: Reader discretion is advised after the following chunks.]

Just to begin, I want to say that overall, I really enjoyed this game. I first expected it to be just a game with your typical teenage drama mixed in with a little mystery, but haaaaaaaaaa, I was v-e-r-y wrong. But as you may already have deduced, I unsurprisingly didn't play the game myself. I'm actually a bit disappointed that I didn't play the game myself the first time around, but nonetheless, I'm still contemplating on buying it to experience the game myself. (WOW, KAREN!!) 

The atmosphere of the game itself was generally relaxing, granted the last two episodes were quite intense and heavy (the game's ESRB rating went from Teen to Mature during the course of the episode releases, so go figure LOL). The game also focuses on a little bit of mystery, a lot on time travel, and a lot on multiple universes, the latter which I am really interested in. There was also good character development, good music (but maybe I'm biased because I enjoy indie), and relatively good detail (lots of Easter Eggs).

The ending was a slight disappointment, which I'll be discussing, like, after you read this paragraph, but overall, Life is Strange was a pretty darn awesome game... even with its use of sometimes "hella" awkward lingo.

Chloe... urgh she's so badass

To start off, I'll talk about the Sacrifice Chloe ending, which is proooobably the ending Dontnod wanted players to choose...

As a warm up, let's use the scene in Episode 5 with Max and Warren in the Two Whales Diner as an example first. Max confessing her feelings and kissing or hugging Warren in that universe ultimately has no point—Max time travels back to tell Chloe about the psychopathic Mark Jeffershit Jefferson to veer Chloe away from hunting down Nathan at the End of the World party.

So my point: Max kissing or hugging Warren at that time is kind of pointless.

Max is never going back to that universe, and the Warren in that universe is probably going to either disappear along with that universe or die in that universe.

Now, let's look at the actual Sacrifice Chloe ending. Although it's nice that Chloe matured at the end of the game, realizing her fate and her role in the Storm, the Sacrifice Chloe ending tells you that Chloe's maturing was just as pointless as Max kissing or hugging Warren in that other universe. Because in the universe that Max goes back to, the final return I should say, Chloe remains the spunky, rebel teenager who thinks everyone, including Max, abandoned her. And Chloe in that universe dies thinking that way.

So to me (and many other people), with this ending, the events in this game seem entirely pointless. I know that maybe the point of the game was Max's realizing that though she is a "time lord," she is powerless at the same time when matched against Fate. But I feel so painfully unsatisfied with this ending from seeing how much Chloe and Max's characters grew within that week of this game. With this ending, players are faced with the harsh truth that Max shouldn't have done anything in the first place, that all these moments with Chloe were not supposed to exist in the first place. I guess I slightly dislike this ending because of how powerless it makes people seem and how realistic it is. Ew, realistic-ness.

To me, this ending is not bittersweet. It is plain s-a-d. The idealistic part of my mind says that, don't worry, in another universe, Max and Chloe formed a beautiful (determinately romantic) bond. But the realistic part of my mind says that with Chloe's death in the universe that Max currently lives in and was supposed to live in, the bond never happened. It wasn't supposed to. What happened in other universes do not matter if the universe in which Chloe is dead is the universe Max currently lives in.

This scene was not supposed to happen. *sniff*

*The Last of Us spoilers: Highlight the following only if you played or know the game's ending! To those who have played or know about the ending of The Last of Us, the ending of TLoU is strikingly similar to the Sacrifice Chloe ending. I saw a comment criticizing an LPer for supporting the Sacrifice Chloe ending but also supporting Joel for not sacrificing Ellie. I see the basis of this criticism, but I believe the two circumstances of each game are vastly different. The world of TLoU is set in a post-apocalpytic world. Twenty years had past since the zombie outbreak, and the chances of finding a cure were incredibly slim. So Joel, though selfish, had a good reason not to sacrifice Ellie. In the world of LiS, Chloe (well, Chloe being alive) was determined to be the sole cause of the Storm. There was no doubt and no ambiguity, unlike Ellie's case.

Now regarding the Sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending, I felt like this ending was more of a dummy choice than anything. Like, it's just kinda there. As I said earlier, I feel like Dontnod conditioned the situation to nudge you to choose the other ending rather than this one...

(Note: I'm going to assume that since Oregon usually does not get hurricanes and this particular hurricane was completely unpredicted, most of everyone in Arcadia Bay, which is a small town, died due to no preparation.) 

In my opinion, sacrificing the whole population of Arcadia Bay for the sake of Chloe is a decision that neither fits the personality of Max nor Chloe. Even though Max (romantically or as a friend) loves Chloe to the moon and back, I don't think she is the person who would sacrifice or endanger the lives of Chloe's mother, Warren, Kate, and everyone else just for Chloe. That's not the person Max is, no matter how you made Max to be in the process of this game. Even Chloe would not sacrifice her mother for the sake of herself. As rebellious as she is, Chloe admits to Max moments before the decision that she admires her mother for being selfless, unlike Chloe herself. She even refers to David as "stepfather" for the first time in never. And most importantly, would Chloe even allow Max to sacrifice all of Max's own friends, knowing how much Chloe cares for Max? Chloe can be selfish sometimes, but she's not that selfish.

But, okay, I'll give it to Dontnod because I can't think of any alternative ending to this game. Chloe being alive spawned a huge hurricane, and it had to hit somewhere. That's fine. However, what was really strange (ha, get it) about this ending was how the two just drove off into the sun like the destruction of their hometown meant nothing to them. Wouldn't they want some kind of closure? You'd think the two would at least stay behind a little bit, or wait for authorities, or give an effort to try to find any last remnants of their belongings, or spend a little time with their now wrecked-to-hell town. But nah, they just drove off with possibly nothing but themselves. Just from that, there's something off about this ending. It's rushed; it's out of character.

*Edit: New info! Apparently Dontnod Entertainment didn't have enough money to fund for a better alternate ending, LOL. Alright, sure, but the former ending still shouldn't have been that much "better." With money or less money, the ending is what creates the lasting impression... Maybe they couldn't help it, but the developers shouldn't have "cheaped out" on one ending and labeled it as "open to interpretation" as a way to get by a poor ending. That's... kind of hilarious... but a little unfair.

The only thing I will defend about this ending is that Chloe is not fated to die after the destruction of Arcadia Bay, contrary to popular belief. I think Chloe will be fine, because all the lives of Arcadia Bay accounted for Chloe to live. The real question is whether or not Chloe is worth all the lives of Arcadia Bay.

Poor Arcadia Bay

Food for thought: Dontnod gives you a little longer, more peaceful ending if you chose to sacrifice Chloe. HMMM, slick move.

Because the last decision is so black-and-white, I feel that Dontnod didn't give much effort to piece together a more satisfying Sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending... Just because it's technically the less "moral" option (you know, the opposite of the whole "one life for the lives of many" thing) doesn't mean that there shouldn't be compassion in the scenes. Sad faces looking out the car window isn't enough for the decimation of a whole town and the friends and family who lived in it. C'moooooon now. Where's the closure?

(I've seen some comments suggesting that the Sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending was merely to satisfy the "PriceField" OTP shippers, because if otherwise, the shippers would start an uproar or something. I don't necessarily agree with this statement, but I agree that Dontnod had to have included an ending that favored the relationship between Max and Chloe, or else the game would've been one-sided.)

But at the end of the day, even though I wasn't very satisfied with how Dontnod executed the latter ending, this dissatisfaction didn't deter me from liking the game as a whole. Other aspects of the game, like character development, definitely overshadowed the ending. (I'll be talking more about these "other aspects" in part 3.) Although... I still wish Dontnod was a little more fair on the endings, or at least be less blatant that they wanted us to choose a certain ending.

Anywho, part two will be about the multiverse theory! One of my favorite subjects. ;)