GoKawiilFans thought they were done with the original Life is Strange duo of Max and Chloe. Following the first game and its 2017 prequel, players said their tearful goodbyes to these beloved characters — or so they thought. Following Max Caulfield’s abrupt return in 2024’s Double Exposure, this week sees the unlikely return of Chloe in Life is Strange: Reunion, an unexpected narrative retconning sequel that’s been greeted with more raised eyebrows than rapturous fervor. It aims to bring the Max and Chloe story to an end for good — and it was just as much of a shock to the actors as it was to fans.
“It was a massive surprise,” says the voice of Chloe Price, Rhianna DeVries, on getting the call to audition again in 2023. “After we wrapped Before the Storm, I thought, ‘All right, she’s not coming back. I have to make my peace with that.” After Double Exposure laid the parallel-universe-hopping foundations for her return, Reunion sees Chloe Price sassing her way back onto the screen, defying death in one in-game timeline, and undoing the agonizingly made choice of millions of players in the process. DeVries tells me that they were just as shocked as fans were. “I couldn’t sit down for a week. I just couldn’t stop smiling,” DeVries beams. “I was ecstatic to get to play this character again.”
The initial online reaction to Reunion, however, wasn’t quite as gushing. At the end of the first Life is Strange, players were faced with the agonizing choice of either saving Chloe’s life — and dooming her hometown in the process — or sacrificing Chloe in order to save everyone else. It was a dilemma that drove countless discussions over which was the most moral choice, giving passionate fans a sense of ownership over Chloe’s fate. The sceptical fan reaction to Chloe’s unsolicited return, then, is somewhat understandable. Yet after playing a couple of hours of Reunion, I’m pleasantly surprised by how well things have been handled.
“I think that everybody involved in creating this game felt similarly: that this was something sacred and really formative to so many people,” explains Hannah Telle, the voice of Max Caulfield. “It was formative for myself and Rhianna and for the people who made this game as well. So I think that it was approached with love, care, and caution.”
When it comes to the emotionally earnest Life is Strange series, authenticity has always been key to selling its characters, “hella” corny dialogue aside. First voicing a 16-year-old Chloe in Before the Storm while a teenager, as DeVries returned to the role at age 28, they were shocked to see Chloe’s unlikely resurrection one again mirror their own. “Two or three years after Before the Storm was released, I was in a car accident,” DeVries explains, “where I died in front of my family and my best friend.”
“I think that it was approached with love, care, and caution.”
With DeVries declared clinically dead, they were resuscitated under miraculous circumstances, leaving them confused and shaken. “When I was first told that Chloe will be navigating having memories of having died and having different timelines living inside of her psyche, I went, ‘That is crazy!’” DeVries says. “I think that the way that they’ve written Chloe and the way that Chloe navigates the story is honest and real — and I’m saying that as somebody that very much relates to what she’s going through.”
It’s a statement that rings true as I play Reunion. Following the eyebrow-raising end of Double Exposure — whose parallel-universe-spanning antics paved the way for Chloe’s much-publicized return — I’m relieved to see the writers at Deck Nine took a more grounded approach to their initial reconciliation in Reunion. After she first meets Chloe, Max stays up all night sitting by Chloe’s side, terrified that she may disappear from her life yet again. It’s a far-fetched scenario that is written in such a way as to make the implausible seem plausible, with naturalistic dialogue options exploring both the timelines where Chloe died and where she survived, cleverly honoring previous player choices. “What the writers have done is truly a demonstration of mastery and skill,” says DeVries.
Image: Square Enix
As both actors prepared to revisit their iconic characters, it wasn’t just DeVries who had returned to Life is Strange as a different person. Where Telle initially provided just the voice for Max Caulfield, this time around she also found herself performing Max’s motion capture. Yet trying as she might to match the physicality of Caulfield from the first game, Telle suddenly found her body failing to cooperate.
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