Life Is Strange: Before the Storm
Life Is Strange: Before the Storm is a prequel to the 2015 time bending adventure hit from DONTNOD Entertainment. It was first released on August 31st 2017 and was developed by Deck Nine. While Deck Nine delivered a solid three episodes, the game largely fails to feel like more than fan service.
The story centers around Chloe Price and her budding relationship with Rachel Amber, the missing girl from the original game. The story itself is serviceable, and some of the choices posed to the player are interesting, but the story just can’t match the high stakes adventure of the original game. You play as Chloe as she slowly grows into the character you meet. Honestly, I found it quite difficult to sympathize with the character. She is often presented with a situation and makes a mess of it, and I found it very hard to wrap my head around some of the choices you are forced into. Before the Storm’s biggest narrative problem is that it simply takes too long to get its legs under it. After the first episode, things do start to pick up, but not until later in the second episode. That means that over a third of the game is spent on what feels like filler content. I don’t want to take away from the interesting story that is there, but over half of the 9 hour campaign didn’t even feel necessary. It isn’t all negative though, while the story didn’t rise to the highs I was hoping for, the writing in general is a massive step up from the first title. Characters seem to speak more naturally.
On the gameplay front, Deck Nine moved away from the Unreal Engine, which powered the first title, to the Unity Engine. The game chugged away just fine on my Xbox One X, with only a few hiccups here and there. Before the Storm also has what appears to be a slight tweak to artistic direction. It isn’t any better or any worse than its predecessor, and it is hard to put my finger on it, but it just looks different. I am also kind of torn on the game’s main hook. Gone is the time traveling bits from the first game, and we are left with a weird argument feature. It really just doesn’t feel substantial, and lacks any sort of flair.
One last thing to note is that Ashley Birch, who delivered a fantastic performance as Chloe in the original title, does not return as an actor. She was honoring an ongoing strike, but did serve as a writing consultant on the title.
In short, the game just relies too much on the original content. The character development is there, the writing is a huge step up, but the complete package just falls short. I enjoyed my time with Before the Storm, but I find it hard to recommend unless you are really hungry for more Life Is Strange.