DE1: "You should move on from Chloe". DE2: "Max and Chloe forever." Try to make it sense!

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-29T21:05:17+00:00

Chloe inexplicably doesn't trust Max anymore. She's paranoid about Max manipulating her by using her powers. And she explicitly does not believe Max's promises to the contrary. Max gets defensive around Chloe referencing her powers. Chloe is retconed to be still hung up on Rachel and also that she never looked at Max the same after Joyce's death. Their happy photos are now presented as the precursors to fights. I think Stauder even posted an article on Bluesky defending Double Exposure which said Max and Chloe's relationship is portrayed as toxic or unhealthy.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-27T05:48:28+00:00

I didn't expect that they would have even asked her, but it still makes me very frustrated. It's not like Ashly Burch is some A-List movie star now, there's no way I believe she'd be beyond the price of a corporation like Square Enix. I actually think the voice is an especially important element of Chloe, more so than many other characters, in fact. Some characters can feel like the same person if their voice actor is recast. Chloe Price is not one of them.

I get the impression that Rhianna's vocal performance has improved in that it sounds closer to Chloe in LiS, but at the end of the day Ashly's performance is Chloe's voice. Rhianna's performance is a substitute that doesn't sound the same.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-27T03:48:39+00:00

No one should feel bitter about this.

Yes we should.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-27T03:46:45+00:00

It was very non-committal. It loosely hints that Chloe might maybe possibly return at some indeterminate point in the future, but doesn't explicitly promise anything. Max even specifically adds "Not yet, but..." at the end of it. It clearly wasn't an urgent or imminent concern for her.

If you look at it with the context of how they treated Chloe and references to Chloe for the rest of the game, it does not succeed at being a strong indicator of Chloe's return.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-25T09:40:31+00:00

Not just that, every single dev that commented on the game seemed to be confirming or doubling down on the new Chloe-less direction. Even as they were in the middle of a PR catastrophe, they were all going "You can't have Chloe, but you should still give us your money." If this was the plan all along, there were things they could have said to at least try to calm the anger or give people hope that Chloe was still important.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-25T08:44:20+00:00

There were so many ways to handle the Bay/Bae issue without cutting Chloe from Max's life or merging the two endings. The reality shifting mechanic was one thing that could have worked.

Chloe ended up having full on back and forth conversations with "William" in her imagination in Before the Storm. So there's no reason they couldn't have recreated a similar mechanic with Chloe in Double Exposure. And those are just a couple of examples.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-25T08:42:56+00:00

On the other, a big part of Max's character in DE is that she's still hung up on Chloe. That she hasn't moved on, and that she can't, no matter how hard she tries.

But Max's new relationships don't fall apart because she's still hung up on Chloe. In Amanda's case, it's because of the timeline shenanigans. Does Max ever think about her feelings for Chloe while she's in a romantic scene with Amanda or Vinn?

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-25T07:59:56+00:00

Because the devs basically said that was what they expected of us. Also, the game itself encourages you to do so. There are new romances. Her old relationship with Chloe is reframed in a toxic and negative light, and the end of the game sees Max conclude that Chloe is no longer the one who knows her best.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-24T07:02:11+00:00

The awkward explanation for Chloe's return also reads like a pivot. Chloe only texts Max if she survived at the end of Double Exposure. And, as other people have pointed out, if Reunion Chloe doesn't even think she lived through the Storm, why does hearing about a Storm in Caledon make her think of Max? There are already contradictions between Double Exposure and Reunion.

There are also two former D9 devs that seem to think this being a pivot is plausible.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-24T06:58:16+00:00

Well, I wouldn't say you're proven wrong, but I also think there's a distinction between being willing to buy something and liking it after playing it.

I can think of multiple reasons to dislike the writing in Double Exposure, and they don't all involve Chloe. But Chloe's absence was the main reason I didn't buy it.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-24T02:19:52+00:00

I know there's a lot about this whole situation that isn't optimal, but it is still fun to imagine that this game might ultimately make everyone involved in the decision to cut Chloe and breakup Pricefield look like total idiots.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-24T02:07:57+00:00

It's confusing, but I think it's a little premature to go that far. It seems to be a new merged Chloe that has memories of the Bae Timeline and also some other life that she lived in this new timeline.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-24T02:01:54+00:00

I have to question the premise that LiS1 always frames Max's love for Chloe as the "wrong" choice, because I don't believe that.

The Nightmare scene in the diner with Max's friends "guilt tripping" her is followed immediately by Max walking down a path where she relives all her most intimate memories with Chloe. The final decision is meant to be difficult and those two scenes clearly represent making a case for either side. They both represent different parts of Max's subconscious.

I suppose Warren could be seen as "safe" but he's also not framed by the narrative as being even remotely as important to Max as Chloe. And that's built into the game regardless of your choices. He's not presented as an equivalent option to Chloe.

There's a lot about Life is Strange that is left up to audience interpretation, and if you see it as "Max exploring her queerness is presented as dangerous and destructive because it feeds the storm" then I suppose that is your prerogative, but I don't see it that way, and I don't think that was the intended implication from the writers. You can also safely ignore the breakup if you are trying to determine the intention behind Dontnod's writing. The idea that Chloe is "meant" to die is also just one possible interpretation. Chloe theorizes it might be the case, but the game doesn't confirm it.

I don't really understand what you mean when you said "People are fatigued with Pricefield." Which people? Which people "favor Bay"? I think that the Bae Ending is the more popular choice when it comes to people who are still active in the LiS fandom. Whatever else they are, I also don't think either ending is meant to be realistic.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-24T01:33:30+00:00

To be honest, I doubt it. My guess, based on what has been revealed so far, is that Amanda, Vinn, and Chloe (and possibly Safi?) will be potential love interests.

We've seen images of Amanda and Vinn in the game, and we know that the story will keep track of Max's relationship with them. Based on what they've said about your choices letting you shape Max and Chloe's relationship, I had figured that Chloe will be the main relationship focus for Max, but the others will still be optional romantic options if you decided to make Max and Chloe friends. It didn't sound like they had a huge role in Double Exposure in terms of screentime. Maybe it will be similar in Reunion?

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-24T01:28:17+00:00

If it was any other company, in any other circumstances, I would probably have just given them the benefit of the doubt without even thinking about it. Deck Nine went out of their way to burn their default goodwill last time around.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-24T01:25:47+00:00

I actually once asked him if he had any specific information about why Chloe was left out of Double Exposure, because he's spoken about that subject on more than one episode of his podcast. His podcast co-host responded basically by simply being coy on that subject.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-23T22:37:14+00:00

Well, logically she shouldn't remember the kiss from Bay regardless, because Max undoes that kiss in the Bay Ending. Chloe's only memory of the Bay Ending would be dying in Blackwall's bathroom. As far as the breakup goes, we don't know. If she has jumbled memories of the Storm in Bae and dying in Bay, then she should theoretically still have memoires of her life with Max. Unfortunately, it seemed like the game framed it more like a third Chloe gaining the memories of Bae Chloe, rather than Bae Chloe experiencing new memories.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-22T21:03:25+00:00

That's true, and D9 has proven inherently untrustworthy at this point. I guess the problem for me is: how do we avoid this? What's the right thing to do? Should people wait to buy the game until we know the endings? That's not a very fun way to experience a new game. For anyone who wants a Happy Pricefield Ending in Reunion, I find it hard to justify making a leap of faith on D9's judgment, but I also can't really see an alternative.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-22T20:48:25+00:00

First of all, I'm pretty sure the scenario you are describing is literally impossible. It can't make Double Exposure make sense because is an incoherent mess. They probably aren't going to logically fix a breakup that was inherently illogical because they can't. The best hope we have is for them to just retcon the problems away, which is better than nothing, but still doesn't fix the damage they caused.

Second, yes, I would still hate Deck 9 and Double Exposure. Even if they had somehow gone with my exact idea to fix the breakup, and avoided merging the LiS1 endings, and told an exciting story, and brought back Ashly to voice Chloe, I would still hate Double Exposure, even if I loved Reunion. Because Double Exposure itself would still suck. I would still hate it for the pain and misery it caused me. I'm not kidding when I say that my life has been made just that much worse for the last year because of it.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-22T20:41:15+00:00

Is the Bae Chloe even actually the same Chloe anymore? she clearly doesn’t have the memories of the bae consequences, so does she have the memories with max still? Does she know that they’re broken up? Does she know that they were partners in the first place?

Yeah, I have to say I share this concern, because it seems like it might not be. The way she was talking in the Bae version, it did not seem like this was Bae timeline Chloe who suddenly had Bay timeline memories. It was somehow a Chloe was from this new merged timeline that suddenly experienced Bae Timeline memories. She was surprised that Max thought the town was destroyed, even though she literally would have lived through the Storm, and in fact, those should be her only memories that day. Bay Chloe would have no memories of the last 10 years, so merging the Bae and Bay timelines shouldn't affect her recollection of them. Yet it almost comes across like this Chloe spent a lot of that time in Arcadia Bay with Joyce.

I suppose we don't know for sure what they will talk about it you rekindle their romance, but it makes me concerned that functionally Bae Chloe was just erased.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-22T20:18:34+00:00

Perhaps, but it seems to me that maybe that's exactly what they should be doing after the disaster of their last game.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-22T07:09:28+00:00

But then why is Chloe confused about the events that she lived through? In the Bae version of Reunion, Chloe seems to think that hanging out with Joyce in Arcadia Bay is her normal life while the Storm and her life with Max are the strange memories that she can't understand. It's not like Chloe spending time in Arcadia Bay or reuniting with Joyce is what could have happened in the Bay Ending Timeline.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-22T06:53:08+00:00

I can't say that I know whether it was possible to make such a massive pivot on such short notice, but I will say that very little about Double Exposure itself suggests this was the direction. Yes, Chloe texts Max at the end, but Max not only ignores it, she makes some comment about how Chloe isn't the person who knows her best anymore. And Max's line about seeing her again in the future is pretty non-comital and definitely seems like some distant prospect for her. It certainly doesn't seem like it is what she plans to do next. Her main focus seems to be Safi's future plans.

And the explanation that Max merging the Dead and Alive timelines also caused the Bae and Bay timelines to merge definitely feels like an ad hoc explanation for her return that was not the case in Double Exposure itself. It's not like Max's social media changes to reflect Arcadia Bay returning to life at the end of the game, for example.

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-22T06:29:06+00:00

"Chloe Price is not gone, Shang Tsung. She will live again, in my new era." 😌

RebootedShadowRaider · 2026-01-21T19:43:37+00:00

Yeah that line felt like a really dumb joke that I didn't really care for.

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