Life Is Strange is an episodic graphic adventure video game developed by Dontnod Entertainment and published by Square Enix. It is available for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One, and consists of five episodes released periodically throughout 2015.
The game's plot focuses on Maxine Caulfield, a photography student who discovers that she has the ability to rewind time at any moment, leading her every choice to enact the butterfly effect. After having foreseen an approaching storm, Max must take on the responsibility to prevent it from destroying her town. The player's actions will adjust the narrative as it unfolds, and reshape it once allowed to travel back in time. Fetch quests and making environmental changes represent the forms of puzzle solving in addition to using branching choices for conversation.
Development of Life Is Strange began in April 2013. It was formed with an episodic format in mind, for reasons both financial and creative. The developers conducted research on the setting by travelling to the Pacific Northwest, and subverted known archetypes to make the characters. Player feedback influenced the adjustments made to the episodes. Story and character arc serve as the central point in the game rather than traditional graphic adventure tropes like point-and-click puzzles. The voice recording sessions took place in Los Angeles, California.
During its release, Life Is Strange received generally favourable reviews commending the character development, rewind game mechanic and tackling of taboo subjects. Common criticisms included the slang that was used, poor lip-syncing in earlier episodes, and tonal inconsistencies in the story. It had sold over one million digital copies by the end of July 2015.
Gameplay:
Life Is Strange is a graphic adventure played from a third-person view. The mechanic of rewinding time allows the player to redo any action that has been taken. The player can examine and interact with objects, which enables puzzle solving in the form of fetch quests and making changes to the environment. Items that are collected before time travelling will be kept in the inventory after the fact.The player can explore various locations in the fictional setting of Arcadia Bay and communicate with non-playable characters. Dialogue exchanges can be rewound while branching options are used for conversation. Once an event is reset, the details provided earlier are permitted to avail themselves in the future. In some instances, choices in dialogue will alter and affect the story through short or long-term consequences. For each one of the choices, something good in the short-term could turn out worse later.
Plot:
The prologue begins with Max (Hannah Telle) being thrown into the vision of a lighthouse destroyed by a swelling tornado. She awakes instantly in the class of her teacher Mark Jefferson (Derek Phillips). To restore her composure, she proceeds to the restroom. There, Max witnesses the murder of a girl. In a single, sudden effort, she rewinds time and is moved back into the classroom from before. Informed of the following outcome, she hurries off to rescue the girl, using her recently developed ability. It is revealed that the person Max saved was her childhood friend Chloe Price (Ashly Burch). The two reunite and go for a walk to the same lighthouse from her nightmare. Max then reveals to Chloe her capacity to travel back in time. It is made known that what she thought was a dream is rather the reckoning of a future event, and the storm, an approaching disaster headed for the town.
The following day, Max observes fellow student Kate Marsh (Dayeanne Hutton) being subjected to bullying for a viral video depicting her kissing several students at a party. It is suggested that she may have been drugged. Max visits the diner where Chloe's mother Joyce (Cissy Jones) works as a waitress and meets Chloe there. They decide to experiment with Max's power at Chloe's secret hideout, a scrapyard. However, this strains Max and results in her having a nosebleed and fainting. Chloe takes her back to Blackwell Academy. During class, everyone is called out to the courtyard. Kate is up on the roof of the girls' dorm with the intention to jump. Max stops time unexpectedly and uses the ability in an attempt to reach Kate. At this point, she has the opportunity to convince Kate to get down from the roof and come with her. Ultimately, Max vows to uncover what happened to Kate and Chloe's missing friend Rachel Amber.
Max and Chloe break into the principal's office that night to investigate. After they search through his files, Chloe insists on entering the pool for a swim. The campus security—now alerted—comes to inspect the activity inside. They flee back to Chloe's place. The next morning, Max and Chloe depart for the diner to sneak into the motorhome of Frank Bowers (Daniel Bonjour), Rachel's friend. They learn that Rachel was having a romantic relationship with Frank and lied to Chloe about it. Chloe storms off feeling betrayed. Back at the dormitory, Max examines a childhood photo of her and Chloe. Without notice, she is transported to the day that picture was taken. Faced with the chance to save Chloe's father William (Joe Ochman) from dying in a traffic collision, she conceals the keys to his car, which inadvertently creates an alternative reality where Chloe has been confined to a wheelchair.
In the alternative reality, Max comes across the photo that let her save Chloe's father, but now instead uses it to undo her decision and restore Chloe to health. It manages to re-establish the original timeline. Max and Chloe continue their investigation and obtain clues that lead them to an abandoned barn owned by the influential Prescott family. They discover a bunker hidden underneath that contains pictures of Kate and Rachel tied up and intoxicated—Rachel is shown in one image being buried at Chloe's secret hideout. They speed in the direction of the scrapyard. Rachel is found dead and buried, much to Chloe's despair. Max follows Chloe in pursuit of Nathan Prescott (Nik Shriner), whom they suspect as the perpetrator. They receive a text message from Nathan threatening to destroy the evidence, which returns them to the scrapyard. There, they are ambushed by Jefferson, who anaesthetises Max and shoots Chloe in the head.
Max is held captive inside the bunker with Jefferson, who reveals that he has been drugging and kidnapping young girls in order to photograph them and, as such, capture their innocence. Max uses her powers to escape into a photograph. Emerging back at the beginning in Jefferson's class, she informs Chloe's stepfather David Madsen (Don McManus) of her kidnapper's identity. Jefferson is caught, Chloe is rescued and Max is afforded the opportunity to go to San Francisco and have one of her photos displayed in an art gallery. She calls Chloe from the event, realising that, for all her effort, the storm has reached Arcadia Bay. Max teleports to the time she took the gallery photo, which eventually leads her to sojourn alternative realities as they devolve into a dreamscape nightmare. By the story's end, Max arrives at the lighthouse with Chloe. They confront the fact that Max brought the approaching superstorm into existence by availing herself of the time travel abilities in the first place. Max must make a choice: sacrifice Chloe's life to save Arcadia Bay, or sacrifice Arcadia Bay in order to spare Chloe.
Development:
Life Is Strange was Dontnod Entertainment's second title starring a female protagonist. It was disclosed in a developer diary that, as with its first project, efforts were made by potential publishers to have a male protagonist put in place instead. Square Enix was the only publisher with no intention to change it. Dontnod co-founder Jean-Maxime Moris brought up the Gamergate controversy in the same context as an example of "a great debate to have", but put emphasis on that they were not using the issue to stand out from the rest.
The development of Life Is Strange was started in April 2013, with a team of 15 people, expanding once collaborations with Square Enix commenced. It was originally codenamed What If but then retitled to distinguish itself from the film of the same name. The game was born of the idea for the rewind mechanic, which the developer had already experimented on with their last game Remember Me. The lead character Max was created with the ability to rewind time to supplement this mechanism. The episodic format was chosen by the studio for creative reasons, financial restrictions and marketing purposes, allowing them to tell the story in its preferred slow pace. The Pacific Northwest was picked as the setting for the purpose of conveying a nostalgic and autumnal feel to the game. The development team visited the region, took photographs, looked at local newspapers and used Google Street View to make sure the environment was accurately portrayed.
It was decided early on that most of the budget be spent on the writing and voice actors. The original story was written in French by Jean-Luc Cano, and converted into a game script by the co-directors and design team. It was subsequently handed over to Christian Divine to be fine tuned in English. Story and character development were highlighted over traditional point-and-click puzzles, making choice and consequence integral to how the narrative unfolds. Hannah Telle auditioned for Max Caulfield in July 2014 and was offered the part; Ashly Burch auditioned for both Max and her given role Chloe Price. The recording sessions were done in Los Angeles, California, with the French developer Dontnod brought in via Skype.
Although it holds significant differences from Remember Me, the game addresses similar themes of memory and identity. Life Is Strange was specified as an analogue look at human identity in contrast to Remember Me, the digital view of the same theme. Running on an improved version of Unreal Engine 3, it makes use of the tools and special effects like lighting and depth of field engineered for Remember Me as well as subsequent advances. Visual effects like post-processes, double exposure and overlapping screen space particles were used as an artistic approach to be displayed while the lead character rewinds time. The textures seen in the game were entirely hand painted, adapted to achieve what art director Michel Koch called "impressionistic rendering". Elements were adjusted based on player feedback, with influences like The Walking Dead, Gone Home1 and Heavy Rain in mind. The Catcher in the Rye was an additional source of inspiration, whose protagonist Holden Caulfield shares a surname with Max, the game's lead. The characters were created using known archetypes, at first to establish an entry point for the player, and then to subvert them. For the sake of serving the realism, the supernatural elements were designed as a metaphor for the characters' inner conflict, and experts were consulted to tackle the subject of teen suicide.
The score was composed by Jonathan Morali of the band Syd Matters. Inspired by modern indie folk music, the soundtrack was intended to inform the mood of the game. The music contains a blend of licensed tracks and composed pieces, considered by Dontnod creative director Jean-Maxime Moris as "50% of the experience". Featured artists include José González, Mogwai, Breton, Amanda Palmer, Brian Viglione, Bright Eyes, Message to Bears, Local Natives, Syd Matters, Sparklehorse, Angus & Julia Stone, alt-J, Mud Flow and Foals.
Release:
Square Enix and Dontnod announced Life Is Strange on 11 August 2014. The episodes were released digitally on PC via Steam, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 via PlayStation Network, and Xbox 360 and Xbox One via Xbox Live between 30 January 2015 and 20 October 2015. In November 2014, the publisher expressed interest in having physical copies released of the game, but at the time added that they were 100% focused on the digital release. One year later, the retail edition was set to be released for the PC, PS4 and Xbox One in North America on 19 January 2016 and in Europe on 22 January 2016; the limited edition featured an artbook, the soundtrack, score and a director's commentary.
A Japanese version was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 on 3 March 2016.
Reception:
Life Is Strange received generally favourable reviews, having aggregated a Metacritic score of 85/100 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. While criticised for its lip-syncing and use of dialogue, critics notably lauded the character development and time travel component, suggesting that there should be more games like it. Eurogamer thought of it as "one of the best interactive story games of this generation" and Hardcore Gamer declared it the sleeper hit of 2015.
Kevin VanOrd of GameSpot called Episode 1: Chrysalis "an involving slice of life that works because its situations eloquently capture a peculiar early-college state of mind", while Game Informer's Kimberley Wallace stated that she found the tackling of "subjects that are usually taboo for video games" impressive. Destructoid's Brett Makedonski noticed that the episode's strongest characteristic was exploration—both "self- and worldly". However, Mitch Dyer of IGN wrote that the story was ultimately obstructed by its "laughable" script and "worse performances". In response to Episode 2: Out of Time, Polygon's Megan Farokhmanesh echoed the view that the emphasis on self-exploration had considerable impact on the enjoyment of the game. Critics opined that the ending was an "emotional high point" and that it brought meaning to the choices from both the first and second episodes. Writing for USgamer, Mike Williams disparaged the pacing of Episode 2: Out of Time as "slower and less exciting" than that of episode one.
Episode 3: Chaos Theory was thought by Adnan Riaz of Hardcore Gamer to be a dramatic improvement that presented a "thrilling, poignant, fascinating and ... enticing" narrative whose outcome from past decisions also added a sense of realism. Additionally, Peter Paras of Game Revolution complimented the character beats, particularly the development of Chloe Price, who he said "really comes into her own as fully-formed character". Though GameSpot's Alexa Ray Corriea said that the fetch quests interfered with its emotional quality, the episode built up to a "killer cliffhanger" according to Farokhmanesh. GameZone's Matt Liebl deemed Episode 4: Dark Room "easily the most emotional episode" and said that the mystery of Rachel Amber had done a "tremendous job in keeping us hooked". Tom Hoggins of The Telegraph regarded the developer's venture into subjects like social division, online bullying, parental conflict and suicide as "bold". Criticism was directed at its "cheap ways" of progressing the plot—character inconsistency and superfluous shock value—resulting in tonal problems, with the episode's puzzles and relationships given more approval. The final episode, Polarized, was commended for having offered a "fitting conclusion" to the coming of age story of Max Caulfield and the relationship between the two leads was similarly noted as having been carried out successfully. One stealth sequence was described as "tedious" and "out-of-place" while other aspects inhabiting the same course of events were favoured. Reviewers were essentially divided on the ending, citing the episode's subtitle as something that mirrored their own feelings toward it.
Sales:
The first episode was ranked fifth among the best selling PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 video games of February 2015. Life Is Strange reached one million sales in July 2015, having accumulated over 1.2 million unique players worldwide. The attach rate to units between the complete season and season pass proved to be "extremely strong", divulged Square Enix. The retail edition made seventh place in the top ten UK game sales chart for the week ending 23 January 2016.
0 commentaires:
Enregistrer un commentaire