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Spoiler warning! This article discusses events in episode one of Life is Strange: Before the Storm. Please don't read it until you've finished your own playthough. My favourite scene in the new Life is Strange game is probably a bit meta. High up on some swoonsome Oregon look-out point, Chloe and Rachel, two students from Blackwell Academy who are bunking school, coax one of those viewfinder telescope things to life and focus in on the people enjoying their lunch breaks far below them. As the player shifts gaze from one person to another, Chloe and Rachel provide voices, and a bit of potential insight into these silent, distant lives. A guy in a suit eating fries on a picnic bench is escaping a constrictive diet regime back home. A father and son at a barbecue grill are preparing for a child sacrifice.
There is something dizzying about acting going on here: Chloe and Rachel are trying out different personalities as they take in the world, but even away from the viewfinder, when they have been chatting to each other on the train ride out here, for example, they are still exploring various versions of themselves. This is what the early days of friendship are like sometimes, I think, in those rare cases when you realise that a friendship is going to be very intense and very important. At this point, Chloe and Rachel only really know each other from their social facades - Rachel is school royalty, Chloe is the person who gives zero f***s - so what follows is a constant dance of recalibration, as they try to comprehend one another, and as they try to decide which aspects of themselves they can afford to reveal.
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