Life Is Strange (2015)
Life Is Strange is a 2015 puzzle video game made by DON'T NOD and Feral Interactive.
Max Caulfield, a photography student at Arcadia Bay's Blackwell Academy, discovers she can rewind time in the moments after witnessing a violent incident in the school bathroom. That ability comes with consequences she has to live through across five episodes. The game is quiet and character-driven, built around conversations, exploration, and the growing friendship between Max and her old best friend Chloe. Choices made in one episode carry forward, and the rewind mechanic turns every decision into something you can second-guess before committing.
Quick answers
What is Life Is Strange about?
Max Caulfield, a photography student at Arcadia Bay's Blackwell Academy, discovers she can rewind time in the moments after witnessing a violent incident in the school bathroom. That ability comes with consequences she has to live through across five episodes. The game is quiet and character-driven, built around conversations, exploration, and the growing friendship between Max and her old best friend Chloe. Choices made in one episode carry forward, and the rewind mechanic turns every decision into something you can second-guess before committing.
When was Life Is Strange released?
Life Is Strange was released on 29 January 2015.
Who made Life Is Strange?
Life Is Strange was made by DON'T NOD, Feral Interactive and Square Enix.
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Explore Life Is Strange guides
Life Is Strange in our writing
- Companion guide: Coming of Age
- Companion guide: Multiverse & Parallel Worlds
- Companion guide: Small Town Secrets
- Companion guide: Supernatural Teens
A few thoughts on Life Is Strange
Alice in Borderland shares the same premise of ordinary young people dropped into high-stakes situations where the rules shift under them, though it plays darker and faster. Both hinge on that disorienting feeling of a world that no longer follows the usual logic.
Coming-of-age friendships that carry real weight
Max and Chloe's friendship is the actual engine of Life Is Strange, more than any rewind power. The Outsiders runs on that same loyalty between kids who feel like the world's against them, Off Campus follows new friendships forming under pressure, El cor de la ciutat builds its drama around a whole town of intertwined relationships, and Flowers in the Attic turns family secrets into real danger.
Stories where the past you can't undo keeps catching up
Max's rewind power exists because she can't accept that some moments should stay broken, and these picks sit with that same pull toward the past. Dream Theater's Metropolis Pt. 2 is built entirely around a hypnotic descent into buried memory, Springsteen's Nebraska carries the same guilt-heavy small-town reflection, Thirteen Reasons Why traces how old choices keep resurfacing, and Alice in Borderland makes every decision permanent and impossible to take back.