ORIGINAL STORY: The third episode of Dontnod and Square Enix’s episodic, time-bending adventure game, Life is Strange, is set to drop on May 19. Be warned that there will be light spoilers of the previous episodes.
Chaos Theory is the third of five installments in the saga of (the somewhat ham-fistedly named) Max Caulfield, a teenager who discovers that she has the ability to warp back time and undo her recent actions. By saving the life of a girl named Chloe, Max sets off a chain of events that pull the two of them into the mysteries of Blackwell Academy and the town of Arcadia Bay, which seem to have a Twin Peaks level of shady business going on.
In episode three, Max and Chloe will dig deeper into what’s really going on at Blackwell. This teasing screenshot released by the developers shows Max and Chloe breaking into Principal Wells’ office by the light of Max’s cellphone. What could they be looking for? Perhaps they will find something related to the disappearance of their friend Rachel Amber, who had mysteriously vanished prior to the first episode’s events. Episode three promises that secrets will come to light and that Max will find a new use for her time-warping ability — exciting stuff.
Life is Strange draws on the story-driven choice mechanics that Telltale Games popularized with its episodic adventure series like The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us. By introducing the ability to undo decisions, however, it has laid bare the mechanism of making you regret your decision no matter what you do, drawing the focus more to characters than the decision tree. The publishing muscle of Square Enix also means that Life is Strange has more technical polish than the independent Telltale’s titles, which historically tend to be a bit buggy.
Chaos Theory will release simultaneously for all platforms (PlayStation 3 and 4, Xbox 360 and One, and Windows) on May 19.
