LIFE IS STRANGE 2
An unfamiliar road that’s nonetheless well worth taking
Get your hanky ready, because this tale of two fugitive brothers is a real tearjerker.
“HOW DANIEL USES HIS POWER IS THE LIGHT THAT SHINES THROUGH THE PRISM THAT IS YOUR BOND.”
Yes, we cried. Sitting in our open-plan office, we let the tears fall and didn’t care who saw. But it was more than the long road that did it, or the decidedly unsubtle cameos for characters from the first game, or even the sibling dynamic that got me, especially, right in the feels. Let’s dry our eyes and tell you how we got here.
Our review of episode one back in OPM #155 seems so long ago now. The series is paced well for the format, but we do question why Dontnod is holding onto the episodic formula. With such long gaps between releases, it’s no wonder this one flew under the radar of even season one’s fans. But now with all the episodes out – and the season thoroughly bingeable – we can tell you that the series began as it meant to go on: championing small-scale choices while all but turning to the camera to tell you what its headline themes are.
HE AIN’T HEAVY
While your supernatural abilities were core to your interaction with Arcadia Bay, here you’re not the super-powered youngster. Your younger brother, Daniel, is. How he uses his incredible power is the light that shines through (or, depending on your choices, burns from) the prism that is your bond. That is to say, this season complicates your big and small choices by asking “What lesson will your brother take away from this?” It’s a morality system, sure, but one through a degree of separation that makes everything so much more interesting, especially as Daniel is his own person and can disagree with you pretty strongly. In fact, Daniel and everything you’ve taught him will have a significant impact on the ending you see.
Now, as the eldest of three sisters, perhaps I’m an easy mark for this sibling dynamic. But the
narrative design displays more praiseworthy tricks than just appealing to my Big Sis tendencies.
HOME & AWAY
This season, grounded by the Diaz brothers’ relationship, excels at showing the mundanity of Sean and Daniel’s extraordinary circumstances, with the developer clearly keen to show its work when it comes to portraying homeless youth.
The siblings attempt to make do in various living situations, yet whatever stability they find is inevitably undermined by the end of each episode. You know it’s coming and you know it’s unlikely to be a clean break but it’s hard not to empathise with Sean’s weariness by episode four.
The departure from their last ‘Almost-Home’ in episode five is especially painful as it bucks this trend. It’s not just because this place presented an opportunity for Sean to reconcile with a figure from his past but also because this time you’re given opportunities to say goodbye in a number of ways, something there wasn’t time for previously. Drafting and redrafting a difficult letter as you prepare to depart is the sort of small-scale choice this season excels at.
Besides showing how the off-the-grid communities you throw in with manage food, water, and hot showers, watching how the brothers find normality in their changeable day-to-day lives (whether that be with pirate ship dice games to pass the time or simply how Daniel comments on Sean’s sketching) steals the show.
The brothers’ interactions consistently feel written from the heart and the communities we almost never see in games are approached from a similar place of understanding. It’s all so heartfelt that it’s difficult to be hard on the game even though its bigger moments are allowed far less room to speak for themselves.
Quieter moments serve to strengthen your bond to the brothers and highlight the injustice they face – they are, after all, just kids. But the game does a great deal of loudly highlighting this fact too, with episode four standing out as a series low point as it presents a crescendo of suffering for Sean. Episode three saw tension boiling up between the brothers, but their separation from one another isn’t the only reason Faith falls flat. On the one hand, it’s refreshing to see a game take such a clear stance with regards to aspects of America’s current political climate. However by episode four, it’s been well established that racism makes the brothers’ lives incredibly difficult and when it rears its ugly head again here it serves only to kick Sean when he’s down.
After the strong first three episodes, being presented with a visibly battered Sean made us concerned about where Life Is Strange 2 would end up. Would the finale fall down a bleak rabbit hole, so committed to portraying the suffering of marginalised characters that it
“ITS PARTING SHOT IS A REVERSAL YOU’LL BE UNPICKING FOR A LONG TIME.”
loses sight of why it went to the trouble, or would we see something more nuanced?
MY BROTHER AND ME
As our ending unfolds, our doubts are thoroughly assuaged… and our tear ducts rigorously emptied. This season not only brings into focus what exactly makes a Life Is Strange game, beyond a handful of recurring characters, but also presents a refinement of that identity. So, what does that mean? The answer, much like how we felt about our ending, is complicated.
It would be easy to dismiss all of the seven possible endings and tell you that none of them are the ‘good’ or the ‘happy’ ending, but the Diaz brothers’ journey was never going to end that way. You’re given plenty of opportunity to do what many other games would pitch as ‘The Right Thing’ in the name of developing Daniel’s own sense of morality. However, after five episodes of trying to be the stereotypically good older brother and setting the right example, we were left wondering whose best interests we ultimately ended up serving. Arriving at the final choices rundown screen, we see that we “taught Daniel to do his best to follow the rules of society” and finally grasp what this game has been trying to tell us all along. Life Is Strange 2’s parting shot interrogates the moral framing of so many games like it and also recontextualises every decision we’ve made up to that point. It’s a reversal you’ll unpick through in at least one more playthrough and a long time after that besides.
VERDICT
A refined followup with a totally new cast to fall in love with. You should absolutely play Life Is Strange 2. But you might want a box of tissues ready for the ending. Jess Kinghorn