50 Fun Facts About Life is Strange

Max Caulfield's surname in Life Is Strange is a nod to the teenage protagonist of which American novel?

The Catcher in the Rye gave Max her surname, borrowed from J. D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield. The writers echoed his rebel streak in Max, an introvert who feels like an outsider in her own town.

Which publisher backed Life Is Strange without asking its makers to swap Max Caulfield for a male lead?

Square Enix was the only publisher that never questioned a female lead, the developers said. Most others they approached would not sign the game unless Max became a boy.

What does Max Caulfield photograph in a school restroom just before her power awakens in Life Is Strange?

A butterfly is her subject, snapped seconds before a shooting a few feet away triggers her first rewind. The picture returns in the finale as her one way to undo the whole week.

In Life Is Strange, Max Caulfield's classroom vision shows which disaster bearing down on Arcadia Bay?

A tornado rips toward the town in her vision. Strange weather and other anomalies then build all week, and Max comes to blame her own choice to save Chloe for the storm.

Which missing friend of Chloe Price do she and Max Caulfield spend Life Is Strange trying to find?

Rachel Amber had been missing for several months when the story begins. The prequel, set three years earlier, shows how she and Chloe first became close.

Chloe Price is recognised across the Life Is Strange series by her dyed hair of which colour?

Blue is so tied to Chloe that characters in Double Exposure call her the blue-haired girl, after a picture Max keeps in her wallet.

In Life Is Strange: Before the Storm, Chloe Price reluctantly steps into a school staging of which Shakespeare play?

The Tempest loses a cast member to road closures, so Chloe goes on as the sprite Ariel. Game Informer named the scene 2017's most touching moment in an adventure game.

Which supernatural power does nine-year-old Daniel Diaz develop at the start of Life Is Strange 2?

Telekinesis bursts out of Daniel as an explosion the moment his father is killed. Sean, sixteen, then has to teach him when to use it, and those lessons decide the ending.

In Life Is Strange: True Colors, Alex Chen's psychic power lets her see what as coloured auras around people?

Their emotions glow as auras, and strong ones can infect Alex herself. That cost is why she hides the gift from everyone and thinks of it as a curse.

Which Blackwell Academy staff member is exposed in Life Is Strange as the man abducting and photographing students?

Mark Jefferson, Max's admired photography teacher, is the predator. He had taken a wealthy student on as a protégé, which is why the trail first points at the boy.

Arcadia Bay, the fictional coastal town at the heart of Life Is Strange, lies in which US state?

Oregon was settled on after the French team picked the Pacific Northwest for its nostalgic, autumnal feel. They visited the region, took photographs and studied local newspapers to get the town right.

Which wealthy Blackwell Academy student shoots Chloe Price in the opening episode of Life Is Strange?

Nathan Prescott pulls the trigger, and the shock is what first lets Max rewind time. He is the son of the town's wealthy, influential family, who also own the barn hiding the story's worst secret.

Why was Chloe Price recast for Life Is Strange: Before the Storm, with her first actress only consulting?

A voice actors' strike kept the original Chloe out of the booth, so her motion-capture performer took over the voice. Once it ended, the first actress returned for the bonus episode Farewell.

Which actress, who also auditioned to play Max, voiced Chloe Price in the original Life Is Strange?

Ashly Burch read for both leads before landing Chloe. The part won her the Golden Joystick for Performance of the Year in 2015 and a BAFTA nomination.

Which Life Is Strange episode, the fourth of five, is named after the bunker hidden beneath a barn?

Dark Room is both the episode and the bunker itself, where students were drugged and photographed. One reviewer judged it easily the most emotional episode of the season.

In Life Is Strange, Max travels back through a childhood photo to stop William Price dying in what way?

A car crash killed Chloe's father years before the story begins. Saving him only moves the tragedy: in the new reality William lives, but Chloe has been paralysed in a different collision.

Which Paris studio made Life Is Strange after the poor sales of its debut game Remember Me forced a rethink?

Dontnod, now styled Don't Nod, was in financial trouble when it shrank its ambitions to a small episodic game. Its chief executive later said Life Is Strange saved the company.

Sean and Daniel Diaz spend Life Is Strange 2 trying to reach their father's hometown, Puerto Lobos, in which country?

Mexico is the goal, and the brothers travel the length of the US West Coast as fugitives to get there. Only one of the four endings sees both of them settle in Puerto Lobos together.

Which bullied Blackwell Academy student can Max either save or lose on the dormitory roof in Life Is Strange?

Kate Marsh can be talked down or lost, depending on what Max says. The developers consulted experts on the subject, and PlayStation Official Magazine honoured the scene in its Best Moment category for 2015.

Which American studio made the Life Is Strange prequel and later took over the series from its French creators?

Deck Nine had spent years as Idol Minds, making sports and party games for PlayStation, before rebranding in 2017 to tell stories. It went on to make True Colors, Double Exposure and Reunion.

Beside which Arcadia Bay landmark does Chloe Price hand Max the photo for the final choice of Life Is Strange?

The lighthouse on the cliff is where the week ends, and it is the first thing Max sees destroyed in her opening vision. Chloe herself argues that the town's people deserve to live more than she does.

In the Life Is Strange ending that sacrifices Arcadia Bay, what does Max do with the photo that could undo it?

Max tears it up, so there is no way back, and the two friends watch the storm wreck the town before leaving its ruins the next morning. Use the photo instead and the whole week is erased, Chloe included.

At which Arcadia Bay diner, where Chloe Price's mother Joyce works, do she and Max meet in Life Is Strange?

Two Whales is the diner, and it returns in Max's final nightmare, filled with frozen figures of everyone she knows begging to be spared. In the comics, Chloe later rebuilds it.

In one reality of Life Is Strange, Max flies with Principal Wells to see her photo hang in which city's gallery?

San Francisco is where her winning shot is exhibited. She phones Chloe from the gallery, learns the storm has struck anyway, and jumps back through the photo to try again.

Which Blackwell Academy student society throws the End of the World party late in Life Is Strange?

The Vortex Club hosts it, and Max and Chloe go there hunting a suspect. An earlier Vortex Club party is where a classmate was filmed while apparently drugged, the video behind her bullying.

What kind of home belonging to drug dealer Frank Bowers do Max and Chloe sneak into in Life Is Strange?

A motorhome is where Frank lives, and what the pair find inside shows he had a secret romance with their missing friend. The discovery leaves Chloe feeling betrayed.

After breaking into the principal's office at night in Life Is Strange, what do Max and Chloe do next?

Swim in the school pool is the unlikely answer: the investigation pauses for a midnight dip, until security turns up and the pair have to flee to Chloe's house.

Under which working title, dropped because a film already used it, was Life Is Strange first developed?

What If was the codename, a fair summary of a game about undoing choices. Development had begun in April 2013 with a team of just 15 people.

Jonathan Morali, who composed the score for Life Is Strange, fronts which French indie band from Paris?

Syd Matters takes its name from two Pink Floyd members, Syd Barrett and Roger Waters. Two of the band's own songs play in the game, and Morali came back to score Life Is Strange 2.

Sean and Daniel Diaz go on the run in Life Is Strange 2 after their father Esteban is shot dead by whom?

A police officer passing by fires on Esteban as he arrives at a scuffle between Sean and a neighbour. Seconds later a sudden explosion rocks the street, and the brothers run.

Which dialogue mechanic lets Chloe Price out-argue people in Life Is Strange: Before the Storm, with no rewind?

Backtalk lets Chloe talk her way out of tight spots, though a botched attempt can make things worse. The mechanic returned in 2026 when she became playable again in Reunion.

In Life Is Strange: Before the Storm, a burning trash bin kicked over in anger starts what disaster near Arcadia Bay?

A wildfire spreads from the bin, which Chloe's new friend kicks over after burning a family photo in it. Its road closures later strand a cast member and push Chloe onto the school stage.

Which British indie folk band wrote and performed the score for Life Is Strange: Before the Storm?

Daughter released the score as their third album. They matched instruments to Chloe's moods: piano for isolation, electric guitar for rebelliousness and layered vocals for friendship.

Where does Chloe Price find the broken-down truck she repairs in Life Is Strange: Before the Storm?

A scrapyard becomes Chloe's refuge after a row at home. Three years later, in the first game, it is still her secret hideout, the place she takes Max to test the rewind power.

In Farewell, the bonus episode of Life Is Strange: Before the Storm, what do young Max and Chloe hunt for?

A time capsule from their younger days is the prize of a pirate treasure hunt, set off by a recording of their eight-year-old selves. Chloe's father, they find, had moved it into a keg for safekeeping.

Which superhero alter ego does young Chris Eriksen invent in a free 2018 spin-off of Life Is Strange 2?

Captain Spirit is how Chris copes with losing his mother, turning chores into battles with imaginary villains. When he falls from his treehouse at the end, he seems to float, a mystery Life Is Strange 2 goes on to explain.

What do Sean and Daniel Diaz help grow for a paying job in Humboldt County during Life Is Strange 2?

Cannabis is the crop, tended alongside the drifters Finn and Cassidy. When the grower sacks the brothers without pay, a plan to rob him goes wrong and his house is destroyed.

The failed heist at a grower's house in Life Is Strange 2 costs Sean Diaz the use of what?

His left eye is impaled when Daniel, panicking at a shotgun, wrecks the house with his power. Sean wakes from a coma two months later in FBI custody, and his brother is gone.

Which Life Is Strange 2 ending has Sean Diaz surrender, serve prison time and reunite with Daniel fifteen years later?

Redemption needs a Daniel raised to respect the rules, who accepts Sean's choice to give up at the border. The brothers end it camping in the woods, trying to rebuild their bond.

The road trip of two brothers in Life Is Strange 2 was partly inspired by which John Steinbeck book?

Of Mice and Men, another story of two drifters looking out for each other, was a named influence. So were the film Into the Wild and the photographs of train-hopper Mike Brodie.

Having sworn off rewinding, which new power does an older Max Caulfield discover in Life Is Strange: Double Exposure?

Shifting between two timelines, one where her friend Safi was murdered and one where she lives, lets Max hunt the killer in both. She had given up her old power over what it cost in Arcadia Bay.

Haven Springs, the mountain mining town where Life Is Strange: True Colors is set, lies in which US state?

Colorado is also where the game's developers are based, in the city of Westminster. Much of Haven Springs works for one mining company, which is where Alex Chen's troubles begin.

Alex Chen's brother Gabe dies early in Life Is Strange: True Colors when a mining blast sets off what?

A landslide sweeps Gabe into a canyon moments after Alex rescues a missing boy. He had phoned the mining company to call off the blast, and the cover-up of that call drives the whole mystery.

Which mining company employs much of Haven Springs and hides its part in a death in Life Is Strange: True Colors?

Typhon overruled its own safety manager and let the blast go ahead, then leaned on him to stay quiet. Alex finally exposes it at a town council meeting, ending its operations in Haven Springs.

Which Haven Springs bar owner shoots at Alex Chen in Life Is Strange: True Colors to bury an old mining disaster?

Jed Lucan was the foreman at fault when several miners died twelve years earlier, and Alex learns her own father was among them. Made to feel the truth by her power, he finally confesses.

Which prequel character returns as a radio DJ in Life Is Strange: True Colors and stars in its Wavelengths add-on?

Steph Gingrich took the DJ job after losing a foosball game to Gabe, which kept her from leaving town. First seen in Before the Storm, she later got a novel of her own, Steph's Story.

Caledon University, where Max Caulfield works in Life Is Strange: Double Exposure, is in which New England state?

Vermont's fictional town of Lakeport is where Max has settled as the university's photographer-in-residence. The story opens in December 2023, ten years after the events in Arcadia Bay.

In Life Is Strange: Double Exposure, Max's friend Safi turns out to have which supernatural power of her own?

Shapeshifting lets Safi pose as two professors to wreck their careers, revenge for a friend whose work was plagiarised. When her power spirals, it summons a storm like the one Max once faced.

Life Is Strange earned five BAFTA Games Award nominations in 2016 but won in only which category?

Story was the game's one win from five nominations, fitting for a studio that chose early on to spend most of its budget on writing and acting. Chloe's actress was also up for Performer.

Which actress first voiced Max Caulfield in Life Is Strange and returned to the role for Double Exposure in 2024?

Hannah Telle was cast after a July 2014 audition. Her return as an older Max earned a Best Performance nomination at The Game Awards 2024.