Life Is Strange - Which ending did you choose/would you have chosen in the moment? (SPOILERS)

@pajamuraix: You don't have to be a teenager. I honestly don't know if there's an upper limit to how many people I would willingly sacrifice for my wife/kids.

I honestly think sacrificing Chloe is the only option. In what kind of world do you and Chloe have a great relationship after you directly caused her mother's death?

Especially because the mom was the only person Chloe seemed to love besides Rachel and Max. I don't think Chloe would be able to handle losing another parent.

I love how people are talking about 'sense' in matters of the heart.

I was selfish and sacrificed Arcadia Bay. I have no regrets.

Fate is bunk. Don't talk to me about fate. The fact that a) The only way you can undo what you've done is using time-travel at the very end, and b) Seeing the vision of the tornado before you even use your powers, suggests that it isn't your time meddling that is the problem. It seems more like you're being put through a cruel test by some kind of higher, conscious mind. And you know what? If keeping Chloe alive is the one way I can spit in its face, then that is what I'll do.

And if that is the case, the tornado is completely arbitrary. If it has the power to create a tornado, it can probably do whatever it wants. It can destroy Archadia Bay some other day, when someone else "fails" its heartless trial. So fuck whoever set this whole thing in motion. I'm keeping Chloe alive to spite you.

And fate, man... What a bunch of bunk.

picked sacrificing chloe, rationally because many people>1 person but also because there are other people in town that Max really cares about, Chloe's mom, other kids from the school, etc. And given how Chloe was willing to sacrifice herself for the town that tipped my decision-making as well. I read part of it as her being selfless, but part of it also really caring for her mom as @dragon_puncher said.

I get why people would save Chloe, but after what max experienced in episode 5 I felt she would sacrifice her personal relationship for the town. Not everyone in Arcadia bay is a four letter word and I took the walk through the town to get to warren for the picture as what would happen in the sacrifice the bay ending. Considering she just went through the silent diner with all those people pleading, I think it would be too much for max to live with the knowledge all of them died because she couldn't let Chloe go.

Same here, I knew what the supposed and the right ending was but chose to sacrifice the Bay.

At that time I sacrificed because I assumed "sacrificing the bay" meant the actual bay, not its residents because they're smart enough to evacuate, all the decisions I've made up to that point would have been for nothing otherwise.

The ultimate decision didn't make much sense in terms of story telling to me and made the choice hard for the wrong reason.

If everything is going to be wiped either by the Tornado or because of Max turning back time to where it all started, the stuff with David and Jefferson is meaningless. Jefferson either gets killed by David or gets thrown in to jail and then die because of the Tornado.

@ravelle: wouldn't jefferson not get caught cause he burned max's photos and she couldn't go back? I thought that's how it worked but tbh they went back to that room so many times I forget the sequence of events

@ravelle: There's no indication that Jefferson would have died to the tornado and if you turn back time, Jefferson is arrested by David, not killed.

Also a lot of people here assuming sacrificing the bay means everyone dies? Even when Max was at ground-zero it seems like a lot of people were able to evacuate/escape. Like there were only 10 people there total, and at least 6 of them could have still gotten out if they tried. The tornado clearly wasn't moving very quickly since it was already happening when Max was in the dark room. She had enough time to drive all the way out to the beach and it still hadn't reached the shore yet.

With no indication of how long the tornado lasted or any real insight into the actual geography of Arcadia Bay other than it's sorta rural, it would be just as believable to discover that less than a handful of people died.

I sacrificed the town, since I had just spent the whole game keeping Chloe alive. I also felt like the last episode was so much padding that the emotional impact of choosing who lives or dies was totally lost on me. I sorta stopped caring, kinda like Max and Chloe booking it out of town after the tornado.

Tornadoes suck, but they aren't going to kill everyone. Some of those folks didn't seem to want to live anyway, standing around outside in the storm. Hard to suspend my disbelief there.

Yes, beginning of time David arrests Jefferson but the events before she rewinds to the beginning won't matter, as in it doesn't matter if Jefferson gets killed or gets jailed, right? It gets totally groundhog day'ed. Also on a somewhat different note, was there any evidence against Jefferson when she texts David? I can't remember if he was doing stuff when the game/timeline starts.

I just can't believe after all Max did, and with the whole "live with your decisions" stuff that gets tossed at you sacrificing the bay is thought of as the wrong play. Stop playing with time, Max! You did once and it fucked everything up, so live with the decision and at the very least salvage the one good thing that came of it all (your best friend/girlfriend). The storm's big and will do some serious damage but it's not going to kill everyone. That's what my basic thought process was, anyway. Fuck all this doomed lesbian shit.

And yeah, Chloe does tell Max to sacrifice her, but she also tells Max she trusts her to make the decision on your own. I think a way to read Chloe's talk is that much like the mature, rational decision is to say "yes the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" she doesn't actually want to fucking die. She may have convinced herself she's worthless in comparison, but man with no real guarantee that's going to save the bay beyond a guess? There's no way Max makes that call. She ripped apart time and space to pull this girl out! You don't go back on shit like that! Chloe deserves more than dying alone and afraid in a shitty bathroom, damn it. It's the selfish call, sure, but man I just want the girls to have a happy ending together.

@ravelle: Well yeah, I mean the entire game is about events being erased so if you go back and sacrifice Chloe basically the entire game doesn't happen.

As far as evidence goes, when Max texts David, Jefferson has already done his thing to all the other girls including Kate and Rachel has been dead for months. And Max leads David directly to the dark room where all the photos live.

Thanks, all these timelines is tricky to line up thinking back on it.

Considering that Max/the player spends most of the game time-rewinding to save Chloe, to sacrifice her at the end seems silly. Also, it's not like there were a bunch of characters worth saving in Arcadia Bay. Outside of Warren and Chloe's Mom, the town was filled with people who were mostly terrible or who the game didn't really make you care about. I would have destroyed Arcadia Bay, even though they kinda half-assed the actual ending if that was your choice. #FuckArcadiaBay

I had fun with this game and was interested in seeing how things panned out for Max and Chloe, but the final choice made me so angry that it soured all the good feelings I had for Life is Strange.

For this complex story about time travel to end in a way that invalidates all your previous decisions... it's extremely frustrating. Either nothing happened, or everyone whose lives you changed is dead. Moreover, one of the choices clearly had more effort put into it, making it feel as if it was intended to be the "right" choice. But the kicker is something that was put much more eloquently by Ayla Arthur in this blog post.

Queer stories are rare enough, but when they do happen, they're very often soaked in tragedy. The game builds up a relationship between Max and Chloe, and in the end, demands that you pick between two sad endings. There is no way for them to be happy; even if you choose to sacrifice Arcadia Bay, the weight of that decision is seen in both of their faces. And they only kiss if you choose to let her die.

Life is Strange is a story about two women whose love can only exist briefly before sacrifice. That's not a world I want to live in.

So fuck that world. I chose to sacrifice it.

(As a design thought exercise, there are various ways that this ending could've been addressed to not only keep the weight of the decision, but also make your previous choices matter - all the while allowing Max and Chloe to be happy, but at great cost. These folks here came up with an epilogue giving a suggestion of how things could've turned out afterwards. I personally like it a whole lot; it made me cry the first time I saw it. While that ending canonically ends with the pickup leaving Arcadia Bay, as a game designer I'm always on the lookout for lessons to learn for future projects. This epilogue gave me a lot of food for thought on how some subtle cues (like newspaper clippings giving "where are they now" updates on supporting characters) can give players agency over a story's detail, without changing the ending proper. And personally... I think Max and Chloe deserved a happy ending. So even if it can only exist in these few fan-made seconds, I'll take it.)

I don't think we need to be so reductive about it. Among all the themes, right at the top is the story for Max coming of age. It's true that sacrificing Chloe "invalidates" all your previous decisions in a metaphysical sense, but all of those experiences will live on inside of Max for as long as she lives. We have millions of solitary experiences that no one else will ever know about, but those still help shape us to be the people we are. Similarly, a Max who saved Kate is going to be different from a Max who couldn't stop her from jumping, and the act of choosing to sacrifice Chloe itself has enormous potential ramifications for who she may become.

Similarly, there's no reason to assume that sacrificing the bay leads to total annihilation. All we know is that the real estate by the beach got trashed and there are like 2 bodies. There is absolutely no indication of how far the tornado actually got. Maybe 100 people died. Maybe 5 people died. The brevity of the ending, in my mind, actually lends credence to the idea that there is no "right" choice, because by keeping things concise the game completely avoids cluing the players in to the true cost of Max's decision. Instead Chloe gives Max a comforting touch and they drive off to find their future.

The cutscene after you sacrifice Arcadia is hella unsatisfying. The Chloe ending is much more rewarding and viscera;.

PSA: the Director's Commentary is free DLC for anybody that bought the digital versions. FYI, you have to jump through a ton of hoops to grab it on Steam though.

1. Download 4GB patch
2. Start the game.
3. Exit the game.
4. Right-click > properties > view DLC > Director's Commentary
5. Download 2GB DLC

Does anybody remember the game Bastion? Wasn't there an identical choice at the end where you choose whether to rewind time and bring everyone back vs. moving on? I could've sworn most people were on the "screw the dead, we need to keep moving forward!" wagon.

@havochq: The ending doesn't invalidate anything. You (and Max) still had the experience of having to make those decisions which you say you enjoyed. Max jumped through different timelines but when it comes to her, she is her own continuous timeline and nothing can take back her emotion and experiences, just like the game can't take back the yours, no matter the ending.

@baconbits: That's real fucking stupid I wonder why it works like that, thanks for the heads up

#JoelDidNothingWrong

I wish the endings were better but i picked sacrificed Chloe which seemed like the more thought out ending given out the other one felt very rushed with no closure. There were people in that town that Max and Chloe still cared about, so it seemed weird to blindly sacrifice them. If you went with the romance route i can sort of see it a bit more.

I knew I should let her die and I would have if that meant her dying there and then, with the knowledge that she's loved and not hated, knowing Rachel didn't abandon her and justice was made, knowing Max will never forget her. But that's not what would have happened: she'd have died alone, on a shitty bathroom floor, scared and knowing nothing, not even that Max was there just around the fence, helplessly crying her heart out. And then what? Poor Joyce losing also her only daughter after William. I just couldn't. I did let alt-Chloe die when she asked me so - she was at peace there. But in that bathroom floor...what a senseless, miserable death. No, I couldn't, especially not even knowing for certain that letting her die would have undone the storm and not made it even worse; and also not possibly knowing the storm would for sure kill everyone (after all the town did look pretty deserted when Max went there to get the picture from Warren, as if most of the town folks had already fled). Still was horrible to witness the storm destroying everything but again, I really put myself in Max skin, imagining a similar situation when it's Me instead of Max and my teen daughter instead of Chloe and.....I'm sorry Bay, I hope most will make it out alive and I swear I'll try to make up to it somehow but....Chloe lives   :/

The game was so long ago in my own mind, but -damn- that was a fun game to play and ultimately a great episodic game. (I do look forwards to Vampyr! their action RPG, but I think even they know that people really wanting to see Life Is Strange 2.)

I chose to sacrifice Chloe because it's still a better choice than dooming probably the entire world as this whole thing snowballs

but

BUT

I knew it would work that way because it was the choice the game was giving me, but it doesn't make any sense why her dying would fix anything. It should've saved the world just to go back in time, never rewind again, and pull the fire alarm anyway. Max still used her time travel knowledge to change everything EXCEPT that. The teacher was arrested, Kate was fine, Max obviously interacted with the other people in her life differently because thanks to her week of time travel, she's a different person than beforehand and sees those people differently as a result. So if that's all fine, then nothing at all would've happened from her hitting the fire alarm again since there was no rewinding going on necessary to do that. Basically, Chloe died just because the writers needed to come up with some sort of sacrifice Max has to make to save the world.

Out of all 5 episodes, that's the one thing that bugs me the most

I am surprised how evenly split it was at the end stats (was about 47 to 53 or similiar). Even if you really really liked Chloe (I thought she came off a bit to much like the game telling you are best friends rather than showing/proving it) killing everyone else in a town is a very extreme thing to do for someone you literally only reunited with a week ago. I mean of course that would seem like a balanced choice for a teenager but for me it didn't seem weighted evenly. Chloe explicitly asking you to do it as well helped. Obviously it's a bitter-sweet ending but it sure beats hundreds of dead children in a town.

Edit: Aw whoops a month since last reply. I am late to the party.

@hayt: There's no indication that saving Chloe kills everyone else in town. The tornado wasn't moving that fast, and given how rural Arcadia Bay is, there's no reason to assume that a majority of the people in the more populated areas wouldn't have had ample time to evacuate.

@starvinggamer: I think that sort of justification is slightly silly. The option is Sacrifice Arcadia Bay. I don't think they mean the real estate. When you go through the town even when the storm hasn't made landfall yet there is widespread destruction including several bodies open in the street.

I haven't listened to the developer commentary but if their intention was to have the storm not wipe out the town and only kill a few people then that is a different thing. But if we are being honest I don't think that's the choice they are presenting.

@hayt: You only going through the commercial area on the coast, not the main residential area. There are 2 or 3 dead people, and maybe a half dozen more that could potentially die. Everyone else seems to have already evacuated. It's not a justification for anything, just an observation. Maybe everyone dies, maybe they don't. Regardless of the developers' intentions, the game doesn't provide us with enough evidence to reach anything close to a definitive conclusion.

I used an illness induced absence from work and a long weekend to finally play through all of Life is Strange. I enjoyed the game a lot, but boy was Episode 5 a total pile of garbage that just about ruined the entire game.

Leaving aside major plot complaints, (like the redemption of the 'villains' through the existence of a cartoonish supervillain,) I thought the idea of the final choice was OK. But for me, the game had never established the supernatural stuff and giant tornado was related to Max's time meddling at all. Thus I picked to 'sacrifice' the town and save Chloe.

Every major change to the timeline in the game had altered Chloes apparent fate, yet the supernatural occurrences are constant and immutable. Max has a vision of the Storm before ever activating her timejuice. Also, in the quadriplegic Chloe timeline the supernatural stuff still happened, despite it apparently being a universe where Max had never used her powers. Despite this, we get to the end of the game:

• Finally having a situation where Chloe and Max are together and alive
• Knowing that meddling with time has always resulted in Chloe's fate being drastically different
• Knowing no change has altered the path of the inevitable storm one iota and with no evidence that it is possible to alter it, beyond a few characters shouting that Max caused it.*
• Are supposed to infer that choosing to alter time will save the Town at the cost of Chloe's life

It's totally unreasonable.

*I am aware that being a branching game and there may have been some hidden note or cutscene that makes perfect sense.

I hate to be late to this discussion, but I can't help myself other than writing a few thoughts down.

The game totally struck me, as many of us. You can tell by all our emotional comments and struggling with the ending. As mentioned before, the game got me really excited when Chloe's powers FAILED her to safe Kate (she died in my first playthrough). And that made total sense as to get me deeply involved and being afraid of my powers failing me any other time when I sincerely needed them. As with the end of Ep. 4 when Max gets doses and Chloe shot - I was almost freaking out, because it was to me by no means obvious that I would be able to unwind that.

Call me naive, but I think there was plenty of chance that the developers inserted multiple endings to that game, e.g. that, depending on your choice, people (not only Chloe, but also Kate and even others) would or would not die, would or would not have their lives wasted through Max' choices or maybe Max could even get herself killed and Jefferson get away with it - YES, that wouldn't be right! But in that case it would be more than obvious that you made the WRONG choices throughout the game and that you had to REPLAY.

What I'm boiling this down to: The game would have dived in so much deeper, if there would have only been more occasions where you actually COULD NOT REWIND and change the whole thing. It would have the whole game so much more explorative so much more explanatory and it would leave the player with ACTUAL choices. Then, what gave a lot of people here including me a lot of unsettling and disappointment is how the game atually ends: None of our earlier choices matter in the end, we get a binary choice neglecting anything else we did. PLUS that choice came totally biased: Chloe even talked us into sarcificing her, Max explains that everything happens because she is not supposed to RESCUE Chloe. None of that kept me from SAVING CHLOE without a second thought. It did not all make sense that Max didn't warn the population of Arcadia Bay to evacuate - that's not even merely acceptable. So I was still expecting the game to actually give me a valid choice of deciding for Chloe and that "sacrifice Arcadia Bay" actually was more like playing a prank to me - of testing me if I'd be able to stick to what obviously was my destiny right from the beginning: Save Chloe. Why else would I have retained these powers? Yes, the game did a great job at getting me sentimental with Chloe, the talk about "destiny" when Max jumps back in time through Warren's photo felt just so right and intended for the game.

I was expecting many things different for the end of the game (more horror in the nightmare scenes - like Max Payne? - and puzzle, more choices coming into effect that can not be undone that late in the game anymore etc.), but:

I know the game is done and my points are moot, but one thing for you all to comment on, how I would made a change to that last scene: The climax is totally there, that's well captured. But how about this: Depending on your choices made earlier in the game, say you have been very much into Chloe and played it the way that she is your ultimate friend and your one reason to wind up with rewind powers: instead of Max babbling on how everything she does is not being able and meant to save Chloe and instead of Chloe babbling how she is not worth the sacrifice: Take away the option to Sacrifice Arcadia Bay at this point and have the decision played out based on how you played the game: Change the scene to be evenly or even or melodramatic by having Max and Chloe actually argue for BOTH possibilities and have them kissing before the Max makes her choice without player interfering. And then it may be an acceptable end for Max to tear the photo in pieces, fall into Chloe's arms, both crying and holding onto one another while the storm wipes out Arcadia Bay - you could even go with a line like, "we don't know for sure Max, if you could have saved any of Arcadia Bay" or whatever. Just make the option to save Chloe an equally allowed option as the "Sacrifice Chloe" one. Because right now it's not: The way the talk goes before the final decision doesn't feel like a choice to me. It entirely posions the "Save Chloe" choice, especially since none of what's happening is explained as for sure and it's all not satisfyingly rounded up at that point. And them just stare and watch and drive away doesn't capture the full potential and tragedy - for me.

I know, it's way too much to read. But then again, this thread died long ago anyways, so I'm sure nobody will mind too much :-)

@starvinggamer So in a neutral context in real life I would always pick more people since I'm Utilitarian more or less; more people being happy is good; less people being happy is bad; this is easily quantifiable with expected value. However the game only really cares about Chloe for the most part and focuses so much on Chloe that the other minor stories don't really have all that much significance to Max; so killing Chloe is kind of like killing the story entirely; a non preferable outcome unless you dislike the game I suppose. The best voice actor lives, therefore game better.

In fiction the weirdest/most interesting choice is often the best one; hence why Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is one of the best films ever made; in real life Nic Cage would be horrible of course though highly practical; but in fiction he's a glorious wunderkind. So even if something adverse happened in Life Is Strange I would usually pick the most interesting outcome not the one that was morally correct as I would most often in real life unless there was potential for something else (unlikely); as a ridiculously moral person.

Aside from GB was never able to find a playthrough I liked but thanks to PS+ got to play it anyway; great game. If this is a walking simulator technically it does a really good job of obfuscating it unlike Telltale games which are pretty damn bland/non-interactive on the gameplay front.

The "Eat Shit and Die" Vs "Fuck You" choice was much more difficult.

Animations kind of got overused at the end; maybe if I did it all in one sitting it wouldn't have bothered me.

Sacrificing Chloe makes sense from a purely rational standpoint.

In an emotional decision like Sacrifice Chloe or Sacrifice all the other characters, I don't want to pick based on what matters to me, personally, the most. Cuz that makes me feel like a horrible and selfish person. So I fall back on practicality and rationality.

Did this for Ashley vs Kaiden in Mass Effect 1. Securing the nuke and making sure it went off was rationally more important than saving Ashley and some Salarian grunts.

Sorry Chloe, but i choose to sacrifice you since for me it does not make sense to save one person and then sacrifice the entire thing.

And, I think the game supports that choice. The end of the game has funeral where everyone lives around you are being patched up after the deviation. The game end with the first moment of peace in a long long time.

For me the game is NOT about saving Chloe. It about Max saving herself, or thaer allow he not top be gripped by guilt because she is letting everyone down...including herself. Max was a shity friernd to Chloe...she can repair that. Max was a distance friend from Kate Marsh...she can repair that. Max handled Victoria poorly pushing her buttons when Victoria was just jealous...she can repair that. Max was distance from the other girls on her floor that all needed help as much as Max needed help...she can repair that. Chloe's step-father is broken and the death of Chloe will pull him and Joyce apart...she can fix that. Girls getting abused...she can fix that. Abuser training a protege...she can fix that. Drifter who's life was improved by Rachel Amber...she can give him solace even in her passing. These are not thing she couldn't have done without powers, these are all within her capabilities; however, since ol Max dragged her feet if she REALLY wants to help people she needs to bypass time.

I feel that the game supplies a rare teachable moment, a moment where a game teaches you a useful lesson. That lesson: life is not always fair. You can make all the right choices or all the wrong choices up until a certain moment...but YOU do not control everything. Sometimes everything hinges on choosing or refusing from two very sad choices...but something will happen.

Cast my vote on... "show me the results".. I SPOILED MYSELF :(

I saved Chloe. She was the character that seemed the most real and I played mostly around her the whole game, so it wasn't a hard choice for me.

I just finished today and... wow. That was a really hard decision. I really like Chloe and I really like the idea of Max saying screw you to destiny. Even though I didn't save her just because it rationally didn't make sense to me. Given a second chance, I think I would though.

I know a lot argue about which ending is better, but to be honest... both are pretty weak in my opinion. The funeral had just a tab bit more fulfillment, but just like the other ending, it wasn't substantial at all, which might have been the point to give people the choice to interpret the fallout of their choice without the game explaining to you every detail about what happens next. After all... that's for the sequel hopefully.

I just really like the idea that in a sequel both characters have to deal with the guilt and whatever other phenomena transpires from Max's decision to sacrifice the whole town. That's something that both could never really escape from despite being outwardly happy with each other and it would be a constant struggle just to keep Chloe alive.

Obviously, that's a pretty selfish decision to make when looking at it logically, but I think the game also touches on the conflict on what emotionally feels good versus what logically makes sense. It never really gives you an explanation of which is "right" either.

Real curious to know if playing Before the Storm changed anyone's mind about sacrificing Chloe.

tbh, playing BtS got me too preoccupied with BtS to really get me thinking about my decisions here. BtS is so much better than it has any right to be.

I'm really satisfied with my decision at the end of BtS, fwiw. All that moralizing over whether the truth is worth the devastation it can wreak made it extra satisfying when I opted to tell Rachel everything. It's almost as if the game tried so hard to make the case for "comfort" because the case for "truth" writes itself.

I had forgotten a lot of the reasoning behind why I chose the option I did, and, reading it again, I'm still more-or-less swayed by it. I still think that the ending taken as a whole is pretty bad, though.

I preferred to sacrifice Chloe. It was the least evil. I think so.

I maintain that if you saved Chloe then this entire game has been lost on you.

@fnrslvr: It's pretty wild that as of a few days ago when I beat this game, the final choice for BtS was 49/51 split. Can't remember in which way.

What an amazing ending to the game! I felt episode 5 finished off the story incredibly well and definitely left this grown man on the edge of tears.

I decided to save Chloe. Yes the game leads you into this decision a bit but here were my reasons:

In episode 1, Max was given time travel powers for no apparent reason. I think Chloe gave her these powers (perhaps from a future/alternate timeline?). Chloe's spirit animal is the blue butterfly (same colour as her hair) who flies in before Chloe dies in Max's original timeline. In the timeline with paraplegic Chloe she said she wanted to die with good memories, although the choice doesn't matter much there and then. In the normal timeline with her dying obvs isn't one and she is so close to her BFF Max, so she is given the opportunity to die happily by having some last precious moments together. In my view the whole game then became like a sending off for Chloe. There were lots of snippets like "I'm so glad you are my partner in crime, as long as you're my partner in time" "Max don't look so mad, I'm never leaving you" etc. which kinda meant that even apart their spirits are eternally bonded, as a result going through all this time travel stuff perhaps. As the blue butterfly lands on Chloe's casket, I imagined her saying "thank you for being with me one last time, that was hella fun".

Ever since Max used her first time travel power to "save" Chloe she was disconnected from the original timeline. So in effect anything but letting Chloe die and not meddling with time is kinda like a "dream"/copycat timeline. "Get back to reality Max" kinda thing.

The game was loosely themed on "destiny". Chloe unfortunately was always destined to die, like Rachel. Chloe was shot in the girl's loo, should have been run over by a train, paralysed in a car accident but the game timeline finalises when Max can't save Chloe from Max Jefferson and save the town from the tornado at the same time. It is irrational to save one person over a whole town, which includes good friends and family.

Even if you chose to save Chloe, the game loosely tells you it was a bad decision and you would eventually go back and sacrifice her anyway. Remember Max seeing herself in that dreamy like state towards the end? The Max talking to you was from the future, talking like Chloe after being with her for so long but ridicules you for trying to save her and not the town. The Max there says Chloe is only using you to save herself. So we can infer that the first time you save Chloe they have a life together but it goes sour somehow. Chloe always kept that photo of the butterfly as a token of their friendship and the future Max then decided to undo all of it, warning you to save the town instead. If that future goes sour, then surely end your timeline with Chloe now and have good memories of her right? So those of you who chose to save Chloe first time, it is intended to be slightly unfulfilling and you will choose to sacrifice her the second time, as intended. There was only one true ending in the end.

Of course that's one interpretation of it. I like the one it is a life lesson for Max to become more confident.

So, I finished the game few days ago. The ending was... well where do I start? First of all I should clarify that in my opinion there is no bad/good ending. It's just a personal preference. I've seen some people trying to force their opinion on others (youtube comments mainly), insulting each other and I really think there is no need for that. It just proves that even though both endings seemed a bit rushed to me (1 of them way more than the other), the game was really good when it compelled people to discuss and even argue about the ending. I was trying to make as logical choice in the end as possible. And I decided to save Chloe in the end. Does that not sound "logical" to you at all? Well, here are my reasons:

The main reason why I chose to save Chloe was my playtime. I've spent 20 hours ingame, saving Kate, finding Rachel, talking to other students at Blackwell, reviving Chloe etc. If you choose to go back in time and do nothing, you basically erase this alternative timeline Max created. Thus you didn't save either Kate or Chloe, you didn't make any friends, you didn't find out what happened to Rachel and... wait for it... you never saved anyone from god damn tornado, 'cause there wasn't any in the first place. (at least that's what the game said). And I highly doubt Max would remember anything, because in fact nothing of it happened. If you save Chloe at least some of your decissions mattered.

The second reason was that tornado happened in all these alternate timelines (even in that one where William lived and Max probably never used her powers). Why should I believe that Chloe's death in one specific moment would solve everything? The fact that it actually does solve literally everything when you choose to sacrifice her makes that ending feel so utopic, it doesn't suit the rest of the game anymore. It really felt like a miracle when I watched it later. When I was making the decision there was no ensurance. Few characters shouting: "Max, you caused a tornado, 'cause maybe chaos theory." isn't a valid proof to me, which means not enough to convince me.

Third reason, this is very simillar to first one, but I just remembered now. Max was trying to save Chloe whole game. Why suddenly change your mind in the end? I am used to finishing the work i've started and not just stopping mid way through. In this case saving Chloe even at the cost of whole town.

Reason numero 4: The game pushes you towards sacrificing Chloe in the end, so naturally I picked the opposite choice.

And last but not least. The game is telling you that Chloe's fate/destiny is to die. Since I don't believe in either, it just felt cool to defy them by letting Chloe live. Sacrificing her felt a bit like "giving up to universe" to me at this point. I believe there's nothing predestined to you. You make your own "destiny", your own luck, your own life. Which was exactly what i've done.

So these were my reasons why I chose to sacrifice the town. Feel free to discuss them further. Agree or disagree, it's up to you.