People often say they can’t picture a person’s exact body type or outline—yet does that really matter if they had a bit of a belly, none at all, plenty of freckles, or skin that looked as unmarked as a blank canvas? And does it truly change anything whether they were taller or shorter than you? Those details usually fade in importance once a bond forms and your shared history grows. Plus, you probably won’t remember every single thing someone has ever told you. You might catch the highlights, but not every line.
What you tend to remember instead is how someone affected your feelings. You’ll recall the steadiness you felt around them, the bright laughter you shared, and any times you were brought down by sadness. When you look back on time spent with another person, it’s those emotions that often stay with you.
I’ve been thinking about this ever since I played Life is Strange: Reunion, which Square Enix says will wrap up the story of Max Caulfield and Chloe Price. When Max and Chloe first appeared in the original Life is Strange, they were two young girls—each carrying their own complications and chapters still to be uncovered. I felt that way, too. And just like I remember my earliest runs of Life is Strange mainly through the way it—and these characters—hit me personally, I still recall how my feelings for them grew as each chapter unfolded. I remember wanting to shield them, and how angry I felt when they were forced to face hardship. Most of all, I can’t forget the gut-wrenching instant when I understood I had to choose between trying to spare Arcadia Bay from a brutal storm or focusing on saving Chloe. No matter what I picked, I knew I’d be left wondering if I’d made the right decision.
In the end—and yes, I expect this will spark disagreement—I chose to protect Arcadia Bay after hearing Chloe’s moving speech about the people who deserved a chance to live. In her last moments, Chloe looked back on her mother and the diner where she worked, before thanking Max for the love she felt during their time together. “You made me smile and laugh like I haven’t in years,” Chloe tells Max. “Wherever I go from here… in whatever reality… those moments we shared were genuine, and they will always belong to us.” Chloe held onto those feelings.
So even though I cared deeply about Chloe, I also feared that once the storm passed, Max and her relationship would be permanently haunted by guilt—leaving them to cope with everything that followed. I’ve been carrying that choice for years, and while I still feel a pang when I recall that moment at the lighthouse, with the wind and rain battering around us, I believed I’d come to terms with it. At least, I thought I had—until I had to face my decision once again when I started Life is Strange: Reunion. Did Chloe make it, or did she lose her life? For me, she didn’t survive.
This has stayed with me ever since Life is Strange: Reunion was announced. I’ve been wrestling with what I truly think about Chloe coming back, especially since I’d already accepted her death. Even in a world full of characters who can rewind time, shift events, or experience other people’s emotions in vivid ways, watching someone rise again still felt disturbing to me. I went to Chloe’s funeral. I said goodbye. And it hurt. But those were the steps I chose. So while I’ve felt genuine happiness at seeing a beloved face return, I’ve also wondered whether Reunion will eventually reduce the emotional impact that the original Life is Strange had on me.
Right now, I haven’t played enough of Reunion to say for sure whether that will happen, but I’ve spent around an hour with it and I’m happy to report that Deck Nine has handled Chloe’s return with care. I jumped in roughly an hour into the experience, and the first reunion I had was with Max. She’s back at Caledon University after the events of Double Exposure—a title that looks like it’s been set up as a lead-in to Chloe’s comeback.
Of course, Max still has the power to rewind time in Reunion, and it comes in handy when a rude heckler at a local bar repeatedly derails one of her friend’s stand-up sets. I’m not going to let anyone ruin my friend’s night on my watch—so by using that time-bending ability alongside sharp, well-timed conversation, I got rid of the problem before the show kicked off, and the evening moved forward smoothly. So far, so very Life is Strange.
As the night went on, I met more of the local community and started putting together details about a fire Max knows is about to happen in the days ahead. Once again, I used Max’s time-rewinding skill to steer the conversations toward the answers I needed, which eventually led Max to a building scheduled for demolition.
then reimagined as Chloe, who can’t rewind time—or anything similarly extraordinary—but does bring a knack for speech. Her backtalk ability lets her “push back” on others through dialogue, a familiar beat from Life is Strange: Before the Storm.
Stepping into Chloe’s role, I made my way into the same bar Max had visited earlier. Max was looking for answers to the unsettling memories that had started haunting her—memories tied to a life (or death) she may (or may not) have lived. From Chloe’s viewpoint, the only person who might help her decode those eerie visions is Max. Chloe hasn’t been able to see her in years, no matter which Life is Strange ending you may have chosen.
Again, these different back-and-forths eventually funnel Chloe toward the same venue Max went to after leaving the bar. From there, a fairly tense stretch of events—explosives, police involvement, and the unsettling whispers of what sounds like a cult-like fraternity—leads to the girls finally coming back together. Sirens and flashing lights set the scene in a suitably dramatic way. Those moments ahead are what anchor my Life is Strange: Reunion preview: how the girls reacted to being reunited after such a long stretch, and after—let’s be real—some very shared hurt.
I don’t want to get too far into the weeds here. I understand plenty of people coming into Reunion will be hungry for the reunion itself. Still, I was genuinely surprised by how Deck Nine handled things. The small details—especially in Max’s behavior—did a great job of conveying what she felt when she saw her long-lost friend again, someone she’d believed was gone. Max, bless her, stayed awake through the night while Chloe lay in bed, anxious and on edge, worried that if she drifted off even for a second, her friend might disappear again. Who hasn’t wished they could hold onto someone—or something—so powerfully that it almost feels unreal just to have it there? With eyelids heavy but the heart packed with affection and a desire for the night to never end, staying awake feels like the right call, simply to savor (or work through) this moment as long as possible.
Chloe, though, is hit with confusion, dread, and irritation tied to the tangled “memories” she can’t make sense of. Thankfully, I was able to approach these beats in a way that felt natural to me, thanks to multiple dialogue options for both characters. That meant I could respond in a more direct manner or offer compassion, depending on what I thought each character needed in that moment.
During the preview, I also noticed—by sneaking a look at my neighbor’s screen—that they picked a different conversation thread. It fit their own personal path for Chloe and Max, which is something that—while that one, meaningful choice may shift slightly—stays wonderfully at the core of what makes the Life is Strange series so special.
I’d be lying if I said I walked away from my short time with it with zero worries about Life is Strange: Reunion. On the technical side, there were moments when the visuals didn’t look quite as crisp as they should, and I kept noticing blurry details—particularly around the edges of the characters’ hair. That said, there’s still room to fix these concerns. The characters’ faces and expressions, however, are the strongest this series has delivered so far.
When it comes to gameplay, nothing about Reunion feels truly groundbreaking at this stage. The systems and the world design are exactly what you’d expect from a Life is Strange entry. The leaf-covered town, the quirky bar, the bands, the varsity jackets, and the struggling artists—everything is back again. But has this approach started to feel worn out? I can’t say for sure just yet.
Still, from a storytelling angle, I’ll hold off on my final verdict until the complete release. What I can say right now is that the reunion between Chloe and Max feels both tender and thoughtfully shaped. I genuinely felt moved watching the two girls come together again—people I believed had already said their last goodbyes. As Isabel Allende put it in Portrait in Sepia: “True friendship withstands time, distance, and silence.” This sentiment seems to fit perfectly here. I just hope the rest of Life is Strange: Reunion’s narrative keeps that same sense of significance and momentum, so this reunion can land in a way that feels truly satisfying.