Fans thought they have been achieved with the unique Life is Strange duo of Max and Chloe. Following the primary sport and its 2017 prequel, gamers mentioned their tearful goodbyes to those beloved characters — or in order that they thought. Following Max Caulfield’s abrupt return in 2024’s Double Exposure, this week sees the unlikely return of Chloe in Life is Strange: Reunion, an surprising narrative retconning sequel that’s been greeted with extra raised eyebrows than rapturous fervor. It goals to convey the Max and Chloe story to an finish for good — and it was simply as a lot of a shock to the actors because it was to followers.
“It was a massive surprise,” says the voice of Chloe Price, Rhianna DeVries, on getting the decision to audition once more in 2023. “After we wrapped Before the Storm, I thought, ‘All right, she’s not coming back. I have to make my peace with that.” After Double Exposure laid the parallel-universe-hopping foundations for her return, Reunion sees Chloe Price sassing her approach again onto the display screen, defying demise in a single in-game timeline, and undoing the agonizingly made alternative of thousands and thousands of gamers within the course of. DeVries tells me that they have been simply as shocked as followers have been. “I couldn’t sit down for a week. I just couldn’t stop smiling,” DeVries beams. “I was ecstatic to get to play this character again.”
The preliminary on-line response to Reunion, nevertheless, wasn’t fairly as gushing. At the tip of the primary Life is Strange, gamers have been confronted with the agonizing alternative of both saving Chloe’s life — and dooming her hometown within the course of — or sacrificing Chloe with the intention to save everybody else. It was a dilemma that drove numerous discussions over which was essentially the most ethical alternative, giving passionate followers a sense of possession over Chloe’s destiny. The sceptical fan response to Chloe’s unsolicited return, then, is considerably comprehensible. Yet after enjoying a couple of hours of Reunion, I’m pleasantly shocked by how properly issues have been dealt with.
“I think that everybody involved in creating this game felt similarly: that this was something sacred and really formative to so many people,” explains Hannah Telle, the voice of Max Caulfield. “It was formative for myself and Rhianna and for the people who made this game as well. So I think that it was approached with love, care, and caution.”
When it involves the emotionally earnest Life is Strange collection, authenticity has at all times been key to promoting its characters, “hella” corny dialogue apart. First voicing a 16-year-old Chloe in Before the Storm whereas a teenager, as DeVries returned to the function at age 28, they have been shocked to see Chloe’s unlikely resurrection one once more mirror their very own. “Two or three years after Before the Storm was released, I was in a car accident,” DeVries explains, “where I died in front of my family and my best friend.”
“I think that it was approached with love, care, and caution.”
With DeVries declared clinically lifeless, they have been resuscitated underneath miraculous circumstances, leaving them confused and shaken. “When I was first told that Chloe will be navigating having memories of having died and having different timelines living inside of her psyche, I went, ‘That is crazy!’” DeVries says. “I think that the way that they’ve written Chloe and the way that Chloe navigates the story is honest and real — and I’m saying that as somebody that very much relates to what she’s going through.”
It’s a assertion that rings true as I play Reunion. Following the eyebrow-raising finish of Double Exposure — whose parallel-universe-spanning antics paved the best way for Chloe’s much-publicized return — I’m relieved to see the writers at Deck Nine took a extra grounded strategy to their preliminary reconciliation in Reunion. After she first meets Chloe, Max stays up all night time sitting by Chloe’s aspect, terrified that she might disappear from her life but once more. It’s a far-fetched state of affairs that is written in such a approach as to make the implausible appear believable, with naturalistic dialogue choices exploring each the timelines the place Chloe died and the place she survived, cleverly honoring earlier participant selections. “What the writers have done is truly a demonstration of mastery and skill,” says DeVries.
Image: Square Enix
As each actors ready to revisit their iconic characters, it wasn’t simply DeVries who had returned to Life is Strange as a completely different individual. Where Telle initially offered simply the voice for Max Caulfield, this time round she additionally discovered herself performing Max’s movement seize. Yet attempting as she would possibly to match the physicality of Caulfield from the primary sport, Telle immediately discovered her physique failing to cooperate.
Telle didn’t understand till after she wrapped taking pictures, however she would later be identified with scoliosis, a situation that causes an uncommon curvature within the backbone. “I didn’t know why at the time, but I just couldn’t get my body to look exactly like I needed Max’s to look from the previous footage of her,” Telle explains. “Every time we might do a scene, I must simply stand there and wait on the amount whereas everybody was behind the desk muttering, ‘Why is her arm sticking out like that?” She adds, “It was a mental exercise in staying calm and accepting criticism about something that I was born with, something that I have to become able to morph through and evolve out of. It was a challenge, and I’m nonetheless in again remedy.”
With Chloe and Max spawning numerous fan artwork — and an upcoming live-action TV adaptation on Amazon — each Telle and DeVries’ lives have been modified by inhabiting these characters. How the total story of Reunion performs out stays to be seen. Yet if there’s one factor that’s undoubtedly genuine about Max and Chloe’s shock 2026 swan track, it’s the 2 central performances behind it, which, for one final time, are bringing this beloved duo again to life.
“I think so highly of Max,” says Telle. “And I am so grateful for this closure … and to have been able to be a part of her story in this intimate, profound, and beautiful way.”