Life Is Strange: Before The Storm

It’s a surprisingly faithful return to Arcadia Bay in this prequel

- Tom Regan

Out of all the games I imagined losing myself in during 2015, the smart money wasn’t on one about a time-travelling college student. Life is Strange told a melancholy story about ordinary people in a small Pacific Northwest town, where you could control time in the present, even if you were unable to correct what happened to its characters in the past. It was well written and confidently stylised, and it clearly tapped into a kind of drama that people wanted from their games.

Square Enix is revisiting Arcadia Bay in this prequel. Picking through the bones of the original game doesn’t immediately sound like a good idea, but Before the Storm makes a decent first impression. With a proper second season from developer Dontnod already in the works – hopefully with new characters in a different scenario – this comes from a separate team.