Life is Strange: Before the Storm (2017)
Life is Strange: Before the Storm is a 2017 adventure video game made by Deck Nine and Square Enix.
Three years before Max Caulfield returns to Arcadia Bay, Chloe Price is sixteen, angry, and skipping school to go to punk shows alone. Before the Storm is a prequel built around Chloe's friendship with Rachel Amber, a girl who seems to have everything but wants out of Arcadia Bay just as badly. The three episodes follow their relationship through high school drama, a troubled family secret, and the particular intensity of a teenage connection that feels like the most important thing in the world. The tone is rawer and more fragile than the first game.
Quick answers
What is Life is Strange: Before the Storm about?
Three years before Max Caulfield returns to Arcadia Bay, Chloe Price is sixteen, angry, and skipping school to go to punk shows alone. Before the Storm is a prequel built around Chloe's friendship with Rachel Amber, a girl who seems to have everything but wants out of Arcadia Bay just as badly. The three episodes follow their relationship through high school drama, a troubled family secret, and the particular intensity of a teenage connection that feels like the most important thing in the world. The tone is rawer and more fragile than the first game.
When was Life is Strange: Before the Storm released?
Life is Strange: Before the Storm was released on 31 August 2017.
Who made Life is Strange: Before the Storm?
Life is Strange: Before the Storm was made by Deck Nine and Square Enix.
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A few thoughts on Life is Strange: Before the Storm
Before the Storm earns its place in the Life is Strange universe by doing something the first game could not: showing Rachel Amber as a full person rather than a tragic absence. The three episodes trace Chloe and Rachel's friendship with the specific intensity of teenage relationships that feel world-defining, and the writing understands that intensity without condescending to it. Developed by Deck Nine rather than Dontnod, the game strips away the time-rewind mechanic and replaces it with Backtalk, a confrontation system that fits Chloe's character far better. It is a smaller story told more precisely.
Coming-of-age stories about a friendship that feels like the whole world
Before the Storm is built around Chloe and Rachel's friendship, a bond that briefly feels bigger than anything else in your life. The Song of Achilles gives that same intensity to Achilles and Patroclus, The Outsiders binds its gang through loyalty and class resentment, Thirteen Reasons Why traces how deeply teenage relationships can wound, and Flowers in the Attic locks its siblings into a bond forged by isolation.
Punk and rap albums for restless, angry teenage energy
Chloe skips school for punk shows and treats every rule like a personal insult, and these records carry that same defiant charge. The Prodigy's The Fat of the Land channels raw aggression into big beat, The Slim Shady LP turns teenage anger into shock value, and Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), All Eyez on Me, and Illmatic built mythologies out of young men refusing anyone else's rules.
Character-driven games where the story matters more than the combat
Before the Storm strips out combat to focus on dialogue between two teenagers, betting that character carries the game. The Witcher 3 lets its choices ripple through entire questlines, Red Dead Redemption 2 slows its violence for pages of quiet character work, The Last of Us builds its arc around one fragile found-family bond, and the 2018 God of War centers a father and son over any single fight.