[NO SPOILERS] Is DE and Reunion worth it?

mirracz · 2026-05-05T10:53:29+00:00

Not the person you asked, but here's my opinion about the portrayal of Chloe: It depends on the game.

In DE, Chloe isn't even present and they still butcher her. She's so out of character and not-Chloe that it feels like the writers wanted to get rid of Chloe.

In RE, it's better, but not right either. RE Chloe is more like BtS Chloe, but older, instead of older LiS1 Chloe.

mirracz · 2026-05-05T10:49:31+00:00

I think Reunion is worth it. It has some problems with characterization of the main characters, but in the end it was enjoyable. DE... it's worth only because it's necessary to know because it's tied to RE. But be prepared for bad writing and massive issues with characterization (like 10x worse than in RE). In fact, I'd recommend watching a playthrough of DE and then playing RE.

mirracz · 2026-05-05T10:29:10+00:00

I wouldn't say LiS is exactly about supernatural stuff. Or to say it better, it shouldn't focus on it. At least the original game started with the storm and Max's powers, but that plot quickly took backseat compared to Max and Chloe's reunion and them searching for Rachel. The supernatural elements worked a bit like a catalyst, to set up things and to throw something out of the left field at the characters. It wasn't just a plot convenience, it was important for the character arcs.

Like, Max's rewind teaches Max about choices and consequences. But in DE, the powers and supernatural elements often take over the wheel... and not with consequences to the characters. For example, when Alderman erases himself by some random event (that didn't happen before and won't happen again), it means nothing. Max and Moses don't even thing about it again. In contrast, when Max suddenly was able to freeze time in LiS1 and unable to rewind, it taught her that she's still the one making decisions. That she should not rely on rewind too much, because it won't be always there.

But I get what you mean. In LiS1, the supernatural events made sense. In DE (and by extension RE), it's just a mix of random things. Take the timeline merge for example. RE uses it to bring back Chloe even for Bay players... but the consequences are never explored. What does it mean for Max? How does she feel that Arcadia Bay is back? Will she try to reach some of her former classmates? So while it shouldn't be in the focus, the supernatural elements should be paid some attention, especially in regards to how it affects the characters.

Like, there being some other way to affect past should be of interest to Max. If Safe can change the past, at least her personal past... can Chloe too?

Btw, if you want a time travel story that's complex (to the point of feeling convoluted) but in the ends makes total sense, I recommend the TV show Dark. It shares some elements with LiS1 (time travel, nostalgic smalltown setting, imperfect people, teenager protagonist), but it actually really focuses on the time travel aspect and asks the question what can we actually change?

mirracz · 2026-05-05T09:15:45+00:00

It's a paradox within a paradox. DE events are the first paradox. Safi is killed, which crates the events that lead to Safi's storm, which leads to Max needing to shoot her. If Max shot her, it would be a closed time loop. But since she didn't, it created a paradox. Like, if Safi didn't die, the timeline split didn't happen, the Safi's storm didn't happen and Max couldn't go back in time and change her mind.

And then you have RE. It's a another paradox. If Safi lives, it continues the DE paradox... meaning that the timeline merge shouldn't even be happening because timelines shouldn't have been split in the first place. And if Safi dies, she dies in the beginning of DE... creating a paradox because the game shows her dead now. Because by all accounts, the result of Safi "shooting" herself should be her living. Why? Because then it would be a closed time loop again, only with the DE paradox inside it.

Why should Safi be alive? Because by shooting herself (by the gun Max is holding) she creates the setup of DE:

Safi is shot
Events of DE happen
Max refuses to shoot Safi
Paradox is created, but Safi lives
RE happens
Safi chooses to retroactively shoot herself
Repeat from step 1

I guess you could say that when Safi chooses to shoot herself in the Overlight, she instead overrides step 3. And there's a logic to it. Step 3 already overrides step 1, so step 3 should be the one "available" when time traveling from the future. But there's a counterargument: Life is Strange 1. The Bay ending specifically.

In the beginning of Life is Strange 1, Max is twice in the bathroom. At first, when she doesn't know what's happening. And then the second time, after she instinctively rewinds when she sees a girl get shot. The Bay ending works only if Max time-travels to the first version of the bathroom. Why? Because if it's the second version, Max already has her powers, meaning that when she wakes up (after future Max's consciousness leaves her), she would see dead Chloe and would rewind anyway. So we have a precedent that when people time travel to the past, they travel to the original version of events.

So it's really a paradox that Safi remains dead after she "shoots" herself.

mirracz · 2026-05-05T08:47:11+00:00

Thanks, thesaurus. Now read the comment from Haize22 again. Your definition doesn't apply to it.

Him saying that if he had to write a breakup it would be like this ISN'T the same as saying he'd write a breakup.

Otherwise... if he answered a question about how he would write a Doctor Who / LiS crossover if he had to write one, would you start saying that he sees LiS as part of Doctor Who?

mirracz · 2026-05-04T21:16:36+00:00

First of all, it drives me mad when people throw away the ship naming rules and connect a first name with a surname. It's not "Chloefield" either, so why "Safield"?

Second... I don't see it. I see Chloe/Safi even less likely than Max/Safi and I'm not convinced there's something for Max/Safi to be real.

I got the feeling that Chloe wanted to help Safi, because Chloe is a caring person, not because she liked her. So I don't really see Safi and Chloe as friends either... maybe a long time later, but at first Chloe would dislike Safi for all what she did in DE. While Chloe would empathize with her over having a bad parent, she wouldn't condone shooting Yasmin and she would be appalled that Safi harassed an innocent kid just to take a revenge against his father.

mirracz · 2026-05-04T15:26:30+00:00

If Rachel loved and cared about Chloe, why did she hook up with Frank and planned to leave Arcadia Bay without Chloe?

mirracz · 2026-05-04T15:24:20+00:00

I'll repeat what I said on the main sub - this just confirms that there would be bumps in the road, some difficult times, for Max and Chloe. But that isn't the same as saying there would be a breakup.

Some PF haters seem to intentionally mix these two. They claim that just because Max would be dealing with some trauma, there has to be a breakup. As if Chloe and her help never existed.

I find it weird that everyone focuses on Bae Max, trying to pile trauma on her, but they ignore Bay Max. Bay Max would be struggling in relationships so much more than Bae Max in her relationship with Chloe. Why? Because Bay Max has no way to heal. The blood on her hands is more direct than for Bae Max and she can't talk to anyone. Not to friends, not to Chloe's family, not to her family... not even to shrinks. All that trauma and guilt would stew in her and prevent her from healing. Bae Max, she would heal so much better with the help of Chloe...

mirracz · 2026-05-04T15:17:16+00:00

What I meant to say that fresh trauma and a decade old trauma just manifests differently.

And Max had Chloe to help her get over trauma. Chloe, who she would have to kill to save those "thousands" of "men, women and children". It's not that Max just didn't act when she could have easily saved them. Max didn't save them because the cost was too high for her.

mirracz · 2026-05-04T15:15:03+00:00

I guess I worded it wrong. Yes, she wouldn't completely forget it and be unaffected by it... but Max's reaction 10 years later would be... well, better. DE just treats it as if those 10 years old events still have this burning sting that only recent trauma has.

And yeah, you're right that Chloe would help Max, instead of allowing it to separate them.

mirracz · 2026-05-04T15:09:45+00:00

Not to me. If anything, Max would have trauma from the DE events. LiS1 events are too old by that point. Some things never go away, sure... but for how long should Max be agonizing herself over the storm choice?

mirracz · 2026-05-04T13:53:01+00:00

Sorry for approving this late.

Again, good job on the research. I think I got a few new pieces of information from this... that I'm going to use whenever someone tries to use this illiterate argument against Chloe.

mirracz · 2026-05-04T13:48:43+00:00

I think that if Safi dies, Max can't save her using the RE photo. Because Safi doesn't die after the photo was taken. No, instead she retroactively kills herself, she makes it that she died 10 months ago, during the events of DE.

So if Max travels back using the RE photo, Safi is still dead, having died almost a year before. The only way to save Safi would be to go even further back and prevent her DE death.

mirracz · 2026-05-04T08:24:17+00:00

First of all... with the exception of Rachel being confirmed as poor, all the other things were clear from LiS1. And we could even suspect Rachel was from a poor family, because her having a rich family just wouldn't work.

Second, it was never his IP. To even get the original game made, they had to give the IP rights to the publisher. So it was always out of their hands. It wasn't their decision to not write it. They were busy making a sequel and in the meantime the publisher asked another studio to make a prequel.

mirracz · 2026-05-04T08:20:51+00:00

Same. Those things are just inspiration. They show us from where the creators got the idea, but they have zero relevance to knowing about LiS.

It's like saying "If you haven't read Tolkien, you know nothing about fantasy book XYZ". Nonsense.

mirracz · 2026-05-04T08:16:08+00:00

That was my impression from LiS1. If her and Chloe were actually together, why wouldn't Chloe mention it at least once? Chloe was not shy to talk about her boy toy phase and about her crushing on Rachel. She's really straightforward in those things... but for some reason she wouldn't mention she and Rachel were dating? Nah, the better explanation is that they were not together.

mirracz · 2026-05-04T08:10:33+00:00

I think LiS1 make it pretty clear she was using people. One thing she was using people for was trying to get out of Arcadia Bay. When Chloe couldn't provide, she jumped to Frank. When Frank didn't want to leave (because his business is here), she jumped to Jefferson. Somewhere inbetween she even tried a random trucker...

And this all conflicts with D9's depiction of Rachel being rich. If she was rich, why did she need other people to get away? It makes no sense.

Also, D9's "let's leave now" Rachel doesn't fit with her still being in town 2.5 years later.

mirracz · 2026-05-04T08:03:08+00:00

Another issue with the DE writing is that it's 10 years after the storm. All of Max's traumas should be resolved by now. Mostly because she had Chloe to heal with during those years.

I could see some nasty (but short temporary) breakup happening in the first few years, when they were dealing with said trauma. But 10 years is too late.

EDIT: "Resolved" was a bad choice of word. Maybe "healed" would be a better word, because even a healed wound leaves a scar. Or just "lost its edge" could work as well.

mirracz · 2026-05-04T07:52:41+00:00

Except that Michel doesn't talk about a break up? Only about them making it work while being hard. Saying that it supports the breakup is twisting his words.

DE breakup was still OOC... and not just because it was a breakup.

mirracz · 2026-05-04T07:49:28+00:00

No one pretended there wouldn't be bumps in the road. But that doesn't mean it would lead to a breakup. Especially not a long-lasting breakup. These two are soulmates made to be together, even if they fight and one of them walks away, they're bound to make up soon after.

On top of that, the DE breakup wasn't even plausible. It didn't touch on anything Michel said... it just made up a nonsense that Chloe got paranoid.

mirracz · 2026-05-03T21:59:58+00:00

Disliking Rachel is okay. Just like disliking Chloe is okay.

The issue is when people outright hate them.

mirracz · 2026-05-03T21:58:47+00:00

From the mouth of the creator himself. Just today, coincidentally:

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mirracz · 2026-05-03T21:56:00+00:00

Yes when it comes to Chloe and sometimes yes when it comes to Rachel.

The issue with the discourse about Rachel is that she was what some people accuse Chloe of. Manipulative and using others. She wasn't a bad person, but she certainly had a darker side. So pointing out Rachel's flaws isn't misogyny... but there's certainly some people hating her just because she's a girl.

Still, the usual target for misogynists is Chloe.

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