Episode 5 Discussion Thread *SPOILERS*

I sacrificed Arcadia Bay. It was neat, because when I first started the game, and met chloe, I didn't really like Chloe. She was selfish, unpredictable, and counter to everything I stood for (as well as Max it seemed). But episode after episode she finally grew on me, and I started to anticipate her next character moment more and more. Finally, I broke and wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. When she completed her character arc at the end of Episode 5, I just couldn't do it. She had grown more than any other character in the game. Her realizing/admitting her selfishness and wanting to sacrifice herself finally made me realize that Max and Chloe needed each other. I made the selfish choice, because I couldn't see a world with only one of the two alive. Great game. Most likely my game of the year.

Yeah, I can totally get why some people don't like the genre. Time travel is a really damn tough genre to get right for many of the reasons you list.

The only thing I can say to LiS is I don't think it's actually a time travel story, but more a story using time travel. I think rather they creatively use time travel as a vehicle for exploring choice and how players approach choice in adventure games in tandem with Max's coming of age story. I picked up a lot of meta commentary from the writers on how a video game player approaches choice with the goal of having "the perfect playthrough." Like some people set up multiple save files with different sets of choices in case one set led to one ending and so on. Now paralleling that with Max's journey, she was trying throughout the game to have the proverbial perfect playthrough of life. Her motives, as well as the player's motives, become increasingly suspect. Like when Nightmare Max accuses her of not trying to help people, but rather trying to take shortcuts by knowing the "right answers." Even as adventure games evolve and allow for more choice, players "choose" based on some end goal of having a desirable outcome rather than what they naturally think is the right choice. We see success and failure in our choices based typically on if we got the best "ending" to the game. Time travel is merely the mechanic that allows both the player and Max to explore those themes.

But they also leave the explanation of time travel vague and it doesn't end with a theme regarding time being unchangeable or you being fated to act a certain way.

I think it had to end the way it did not because of anything to do with time travel, but because the game was ultimately about Max becoming an adult and accepting failure. The final choice is incredible to me to see come from a video game, a medium all about power fantasy where in the end the player always wins even when the end result might be bittersweet or tragic or sad, because not many games end with the player outright failing in what they perceive as their "victory" goal. If they allowed the player to escape that choice, it would have felt like a copout to me. Even an option to sacrifice Max for Chloe would have completely missed the point. Instead, Max has to accept one level of responsibility or the other for her initial failure, which was hiding in a bathroom until it was too late to save her friend.

I appreciate and enjoyed your writeup though, as it's good to see other interpretations and reactions to the game!

@pr1mus: I'm glad you loved the game, but I couldn't disagree more about the ending. Upon first meeting Chloe, her petulance was off-putting to me. Like why are you giving me so much shit, Chloe, come on? But as the game went on, all the layers of Chloe's character were revealed. I was wrong about her. She puts up a wall to keep people out, so she doesn't get hurt anymore. But behind the wall, is like the most genuine person ever. She's like the friend I've always wanted. Someone who understands me and loves me unconditionally. So I put my affection for Chloe into Max, and the game lets me do that. So after Max goes through literal hell, and comes to the choice of sacrificing Chloe, I was like "Nope, no way. I will do anything to save Chloe. You won't take her away from me. No matter the cost." And after I saved Chloe, I started thinking, "yeah, you know what, fuck utilitarianism." Max (I) would regret not saving Chloe for the rest of her life.

Bae over bay, erry day.

In the end, I made the only choice I felt was right and sacrificed Chloe.

I feel like this story was about growing up and making decisions that really hit their hardest in adulthood. From the very beginning, we meet a Max who is hesitant and resistant to most of the events in her life. She doesn't want to submit a picture because she has no confidence in her talents, she is constantly judging all of her classmates internally perhaps to cover up her own insecurities, and she just turned 18 a few days ago. Yes, it would be silly to think that the moment someone turns 18- everything changes, but at the same time, society would have you believe that to be true.

In the 5 days that follow, Max is forced to deal with the following (as reflected by) :

Bullying (Take your pick)

Drugs (Again, take your pick)

Rape (Chloe, Kate, Rachel)

Suicide (Kate)
Mental Health (Nathan, Samual?)

Abandonment (Chloe)

Sexual Identity (hetero or homo depending on your playthrough)

Murder (Rachel, Frank)

And more importantly, sacrifice- having the capacity to let go of the things that are out of your control.

Of course, these are things not exclusive to adulthood, but in this scenario, Max and even the majority of the students at Blackwell are at a point in their life were they can no longer rely on the comforts of their guardians to protect them or make those decisions for them.

This all really became clear to me once we hit the party in episode 4. I, as the player, was given the opportunity to, through Max, to rip into Victoria Chase with a righteous vengeance. It felt good to get the things off my chest I wanted to say to Victoria as she was a tormentor for most of the week. And, after all was said and done, I still chose to warn her about Nathan. And then, she didn't believe me... It was here that I (and Max) realized the effect of our words. Yes, I could have reversed time and said nicer things and maybe she would have believed me, but then I would be no better than what she was (as demonstrated by her 'kindness' in episode 1).

And, even past Max's growth as an adult, there is another angle to this that I really felt strongly about- destiny.

No matter what we did, no matter how hard we tried over the course of that week, in all realities except the destruction of Arcadia Bay, Chloe dies. And what of that reality? What evidence is there that Max and Chloe will last. What happens after they drove off into the sunset? How do they cope with the fact that they might have knowingly caused the deaths of hundreds of people. And what of Max's new found attitude about the world? She is more mature, and more able to think for herself and not hang onto Chloe's every word. Dead Like Me, a fantastic short lived show, that I highly recommend, argues this same theory about destiny and fate. Without going into too much detail, after a small child marked for death is saved by her reluctant grim reaper and misses her "appointment", we learn what happens to people who miss their inevitable end.

"Her fate was sealed the moment she got onto that train. Her soul expired...If you're having trouble comprehending the severity of the situation, why don't you consult Webster's on the definition of bad? If you don't take her soul, it's going to wither and die and rot inside her. I've seen it happen. Do you wish to condemn her to that?"

Chloe missed her appointment because of Max and in turn began to spiral, and would spiral further after the storm. The same could be said about the reality in which William missed his appointment with death.

Max was given a great gift. She was given the chance to be with her best friend again for a week; or possibly several lifetimes. In my story, Max realized her feelings for Chloe that perhaps kept her out of contact for 5 years prior until she was given the chance to become more comfortable with them. And in the end, we met the new Max who would never have made the same decision in the beginning.

It sucks and it's not fair, but being able to deal with that very statement shows maturity and growth.

These are all just my opinions, of course. :)

Well, GB East Life Is Strange playthrough is on some kind of hiatus, so they've really boned themselves for the climax of episode 2. They are not going to remember ANYTHING.

In general, I think it's a poor idea to not finish an entire episode of an episodic game in one sitting. Or like, maybe you can do half one day, half the next. But doing half an episode, then stopping for like 2+ weeks is going to be rough.

I liked the ending, but ends up being a disappointment, as there isn't a strong reason to replay the whole game again, if in the end the choices mean so little along the story.

I also hated the dream/alternative reality segment of Chapter 5. I felt that it didn't make much sense, and it was very unintuitive and confusing. I feel the game could have been without it, and a bit more development on other fronts.

I took it as Max's going over her memories of the week and a way for her to work out what she possibly already knew was the decision she would have to make. I don't claim to know what it all meant and I will agree it went on a little too long, but I liked what they were trying to get across.

I thought that it exemplified her consciousness breaking down due to the strain she put upon herself, and all those repressed desires, giving rise to a nonsensical paradoxical dream. Still they could have her just pass out.

@jeust said:

Sure, at the end of the day, no specific thing you do in the game changes the final choice into anything other than "sacrifice Chloe/sacrifice Arcadia Bay". In fact, most of those decisions are undone if you sacrifice Chloe, whereas most of them stick if you sacrifice Arcadia Bay.

I guess I don't think people should sweat the details on whether or not your choices along the way affect the ending directly. The choices were there to give you exposure to Arcadia Bay and Chloe, and to let you define Max's character. "Character" in the fictional sense, but also it lets you "build character" in the way that your grandpa might heckle you about getting a job because it'll "build character". Max goes through some stuff, you choose how she handles it, and by the time you get to the ending, you know what Max would pick.

I guess I just don't understand what this means. The ending has two choices but they're not the same two choices for every playthrough. The story itself has changed and so everything is different depending what choices you made.

• Gay/bi Max is potentially choosing to save her love, not just her old best friend.
• Straight/bi Max could be choosing to let her new boyfriend in the diner die (and never get to go see a drive-in movie).
• Is Max thinking about the woman she talked out of suicide in the path of the storm or is Kate already dead?
• Has Max already weighed up and accepted allowing Chloe to die if that is her wish (be it in different circumstances and a different reality)?
• How does Max feel about every other person in Arcadia Bay?

All of this matters and all of this is about how you spent those 15-20 hours experiencing the game. Who your Max is?

Did the game add up some secret formula about your decisions previously in the game and serve up an ending based on that? No. But the ability to choose an ending is not at all the same as saying the game doesn't provide consequences for the path chosen. Unlike a Call of Duty or Uncharted, things you do matter - there are many stories in Life is Strange.

The "can I replay it" metric always seems to weird to me. I watch movies more than once. Nothing changes. Each of the 24 frames per second is identical every time I see a movie. But I come in with different knowledge, I focus on different details; I have a different experience.

Going through Life is Strange again I do experience variations, even if I'm aiming to play roughly the same way as before. But I notice new details in what stay the same too; eg. the two wrist-bands Max is wearing at the funeral in the end.

I think one of the interesting things Life is Strange does is that it doesn't make you feel like you're missing out on what the dialogue trees offer. You don't need to go back and play it again to see what other dialogue options happen because the rewind means that, if you want to, you can explore all potential dialogue options as you encounter them. You can see the breadth of conversations that could be happening before picking what becomes the canonical choices for your experience. I think that's a great option and I will forever curse the lack of it every time I'm in a game and the dialogue tree offers a few short words and I have to guess what will happen when I pick them. That moment when you tell your character to say something and they say something completely different to what you wanted. The change from having the full line of dialogue in classic RPGs to the new dialogue wheels makes everything worse (but allows for a voiced protagonist with more cinematic dialogue sections). "Noooo... stop! I didn't tell you to say that!" *hammers the rewind time button as Shepard says something completely out of character for my playthrough*

Yes, but the curiosity raised from the expectation of seeing the outcome of your choices, loses quite a bit of steam, if in the end those choices aren't fleshed out satisfyingly.

Of course I'm talking about the ending brought by sacrifying Chloe.

In the other ending many/some of the choices stay. Still they aren't represented, and chances are we will never see any outcome of them. Or we'll just see a brief mention of it, in the second season.

To me the ending after sacrificing Chloe shows an experienced and lived Max, who has a good understanding of herself, the people and the occurences in Arcadia Bay, and feels confident and in control of her life.

I understand what you are saying, but for a game that had as one of the main selling points consequences to your actions, an ending that doesn't represent much of the choices taken kills subconsciously much of the curiosity into replaying it, as it affects one of the main selling points of the game.

I don't replay Uncharted for its variability in the story, but because of how great, emotive and polished the experience is. And I replay Fable: The Lost Chapters for how funny, epic and good the game is. Life is Strange is a different game, and one of the main sellings points was the freedom of choice and consequences. And it's by its characteristics that the product is judged. And as one of its virtues is not fleshed out as well as I want, I feel disappointed in it, and it hurts my enjoyment, and the value of the game in my judgement.

And yes, I can live the build-up the game provides, savour it, but many of the consequences are imaginary, and there is no representation of it, thus devaluing the game, as it doesn't give a satisfyingly fleshed out result to the choices I made, thus killing part of the enjoyment of the ending, and the replayability of the game. Even because save one or two choices - one in my case -, I've made the ones I wanted, so much of the remnant curiosity would lay in seeing the other choices play out, but as there is little of it in the long haul, there is not much reason, to play them out.

That said I'm not regretting having bought it. I like it. And I'm replaying it to experience the other variance of that event which I was curious about, but my expectation for the unfolding story is low. I'm enjoying myself, but it could have been a more riveting experience, a better product.

I can only think of how things could have turned out, if instead of padding the game out, with that chaotic and paradoxical dream, the resources would have been allocated fulfilling results to the choices made. It would have been a better, more interesting game.

But in the end, it is a good game, unique, with a cool story worth playing it at least twice, just not many times.

I really enjoyed the game and was touched by it at times. I especially liked the relationship that Chloe and Max had (although I think if I were Chloe I wouldn't have accepted Max back so quickly and fully after she didn't contact her for 5 years, but hey, that's maybe just me).

However I do feel the ending was a bit rushed. If this had a sixth episode I think it would have had better pacing overall.

I'll buy the next season when it comes out for sure.

(technically ep4 spoilers but might as well have LiS spoiler discussion in this thread as everyone reading is expecting full spoilers for anything in the season)

So watching the end of ep 2 GBEast run today, I'd not noticed how Jefferson steps in to stop the principal from interrogating Nathan at the end. In hindsight, that's a massive linkage there beyond the "Jefferson is all wrong" moments elsewhere. He's clearly protecting Nathan at that point, and the scene moving to Nathan thanking him with a sarcastic fake-expression of how broken up he is from the events. Gah, it's so infuriating. Not to say no one picked up on this stuff and didn't speculate about it but the way it was all so clearly telegraphed is really good when going back and picking up the different things, given the context of knowing what is really going on.

@shivoa: Yeah, I'm totally with you, it has been great picking up on just how many Jefferson hints there are.

Also, in my playthrough, I only caught the very end of the Jefferson/Kate discussion, where he's like "sorry, can't help ya, later!" and then she walks away. I never rewound like Vinny did, where you hear the earlier part of the conversation where Jefferson is WAY meaner to her. I actually thought them seeing the full conversation between Kate and Jefferson might push someone among Vinny/Alex/Austin over to the "maybe Jefferson is involved" theory, because I sure might have considered that if I saw it back in episode 2, but instead now all 3 of them just really think Jefferson is a pompous asshole intellectual who isn't there for his students.

Also, this episode is like the last clue moment that puts any suspicion on Jefferson, between that Jefferson/Kate discussion and then the game kinda surprisingly giving you the option to blame Jefferson in the principal's office for Kate's suicide/attempted suicide. Episodes 3 and 4 Jefferson is basically squeaky clean, because in episode 3 all he does is blow off Victoria's sexual advances, and in episode 4 he presents the Everyday Heroes award at the party in a totally normal way. Then the episode 4 ending happens. I think it was smart of them to almost downplay the importance of Jefferson in eps 3 and 4, just putting more focus on Nathan, his dark room, and the Max/Chloe relationship, because he had been so not-very-important that they suckered me in and I didn't see the ep 4 ending coming at all.

So I'll be curious to see whether Vinny/Alex/Austin will ever seriously suspect Jefferson, or if they'll just think it is Nathan + possible accomplice.

Also, I had forgotten that bit where David Madsen kinda apologizes to Max and says he wants to stop fighting with people. Man, David is such an asshole in episode 1, and I feel like Vinny et al. might still mildly suspect that his surveillance is part of the creepy photo binders shown at the end of the episodes, but I really like the way the game humanizes David over the course of the season.

@bisonhero: Agreed.

I also didn't rewind after the science class to get the entire conversation and hear everything Jefferson said to Kate. But I feel the blame option at the end makes way more sense if you did listen in. Having heard that, I'd say Jefferson could easily be the person you blame as the immediate person who pushed Kate about before she went to the roof.

The way the episodes move people around (I'd say ep 3, at least for my playthrough, continued to paint David as more bad than good but the humanisation finally circles around enough for it to feel earned by the ep 5 reveal) and does reduce how much Jefferson is involved in the middle episodes is why everyone wasn't already on his case when ep 4 ended. The story needed a break from him as the main authority figure to allow the family drama to play out. Really good work.

@shivoa: And now that I rewatch the episodes, it makes me really reconsider the focuses in each episode.

Episodes 1-2 are very much an introduction to the characters and by far put the most focus on Max's classmates and their problems, while Chloe is just kind of around. Then Max commits to doing all the detective work with Chloe, so episodes 3-4 are The Chloe and Max Show as they look into Nathan and Rachel Amber's disappearance and that goes some places. Then episode 5 is Max basically dealing with the consequences of her powers, what she can and cannot easily change, fate and all that. It's a valid final episode, but I can see why people were a little disappointed after 4 character-focused episodes. It's an episode that is either having super villain conversations with Jefferson, or its crazy introspective Max nightmare moments that feel like a finale to Evangelion. It was something of a change of pace, but in their defense they couldn't have returned to the format of the previous episodes now that Max knows about Rachel Amber and Jefferson.

I think Life is Strange is my GOTY, despite the fact that the fifth episode is by far my least favorite in the entire series. The first four episodes were just that good.

I just finished and am processing my thoughts still. An interesting game that gave me much more than I expected of it initially.

I think I'm in agreement with the sentiment "The journey mattered more than the destination" but I can see where others are coming from with their criticisms.

I gotta know, did anyone else get a text from William in the snow globe dream? It was along the lines of "Hey Max :) Say hello to Chloe and Joyce for me, and thanks for letting me die twice." Ugh.

If anything else, the game did punch me in the gut a few times.

Did anyone else notice is snowing in the sacrifice Chloe ending? Its subtle, buts theirs flurries and its sunny out like the day Max originally saved her. Cant tell how warm it is but i doubt its freezing they way there all dressed. Only issue with this is its odd that they would bury her the same day she was killed, but i guess its possible. Nod to a second season with Max and Chloe?

@sanity: I don't think it's the same day, i think the idea with Max at the lighthouse before the funeral is showing that there's no storm in the fifth day.

There is a lot of discussion in this thread of how people would have changed the 2 endings, and what other options there should have been. Perhaps when something ends in a way you don't agree with the knee jerk reaction is to try and provide ways it could of ended better. Could of ended in a way that would of pleased your personal narrative. Rejecting the journey and the conclusion that the authors have provided. Instead, of trying to dig and build on what the authors have chosen to do. Part of this being that, you can't make everyone happy, you can't save everyone; this being the statement to the characters in game and players at the controls.

There is a beautiful mechanic with the time travel in life as strange. In that when Max goes back through a picture, it doesn't stop time in the present day reality when she is tampering with the past of said picture. While she has the ability to rewind, she actually can't stop the march of time. The inevitability that none of us can escape.

I knee jerked the chose to save Chloe. And then I re winded and saved Arcadia Bay. Could I as Max, really burn the world down all around me to save my friend, against my friend's wish? A direct parallel to Chloe on her bed during the intro of episode 4. I chose not to abandon Chloe, then and let her drift to sleep. Partially because I was gripped with disbelief that the reality I was in was real and that I could change this back, I had to change this back.

How curious a butterfly chose to let me spend a week, but just a week, with my best friend before I have to let her go. As with every far-back rewind, time keeps marching and there is only so much time. Do I wish there was more to the ending of save Chloe, sure. She would have been devastated, Max wouldn't of been able to lie to Chloe and tell the Tornado would happen no matter what. Fate has chosen for you that you are going to lose her, or to lose yourself. We'll get to the latter idea.

My Max couldn't of lived with destroying Arcadia Bay and lying to herself that it was inevitable.

I come away with, that even with magical time traveling nonsense, I just can't have everything turn out alright. And, I've been given this gift to reconnect, get up to mischief, get hurt, grow a friendship, grow a love, grow a lasting embrace that I'll never forget, which otherwise I would of had none of without the powers, and which I would of had to ruin, to be selfish and all the world itself to spiral out of control and rip apart. Life is messy, and there are going to be so many bad things that happen along the way. But we still have good memories to cherish. And we can let loss, destroy the world around us.

This, perhaps, to me is my big takeaway. We can allow the loss of Chloe to destroy us, destroy the world (Arcadia Bay Tornado-rama), and leave things so shattered. For those of you who've met someone whom has never recovered from a loss, this is the Max that chooses to save Chloe. My Max, would be so strong, it would hurt so damn much it would hurt more than any other decision in the game, ... she would lose her best friend ... and she would keep living. We can praise the luck we have for the time and the memories we got to experience with Chloe. We can have grief and sorrow, but the sun will still rise and we must keep living, loving, life.