Followers thought they have been completed with the original Life is Strange duo of Max and Chloe. Following the primary recreation and its 2017 prequel, gamers stated their tearful goodbyes to those beloved characters — or so 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 carry 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 an enormous shock,” says the voice of Chloe Value, Rhianna DeVries, on getting the decision to audition once more in 2023. “After we wrapped Earlier than the Storm, I believed, ‘All proper, she’s not coming again. I’ve to make my peace with that.” After Double Publicity laid the parallel-universe-hopping foundations for her return, Reunion sees Chloe Value sassing her means again onto the display, 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 per week. I simply couldn’t cease smiling,” DeVries beams. “I used to be ecstatic to get to play this character once more.”
The preliminary on-line response to Reunion, nevertheless, wasn’t fairly as gushing. On the finish of the primary Life is Unusual, 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 probably the most ethical alternative, giving passionate followers a way of possession over Chloe’s destiny. The sceptical fan response to Chloe’s unsolicited return, then, is considerably comprehensible. But after taking part in a few hours of Reunion, I’m pleasantly stunned by how nicely issues have been dealt with.
“I feel that everyone concerned in creating this recreation felt equally: that this was one thing sacred and actually formative to so many individuals,” explains Hannah Telle, the voice of Max Caulfield. “It was formative for myself and Rhianna and for the individuals who made this recreation as nicely. So I feel that it was approached with love, care, and warning.”
In the case of the emotionally earnest Life is Unusual sequence, authenticity has at all times been key to promoting its characters, “hella” corny dialogue apart. First voicing a 16-year-old Chloe in Earlier than the Storm whereas a young person, 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 Earlier than the Storm was launched, I used to be in a automobile accident,” DeVries explains, “the place I died in entrance of my household and my finest good friend.”
“I feel that it was approached with love, care, and warning.”
With DeVries declared clinically useless, they have been resuscitated below miraculous circumstances, leaving them confused and shaken. “Once I was first informed that Chloe will probably be navigating having reminiscences of getting died and having totally different timelines residing within her psyche, I went, ‘That’s loopy!’” DeVries says. “I feel that the best way that they’ve written Chloe and the best way that Chloe navigates the story is trustworthy and actual — and I’m saying that as any person that very a lot pertains to what she’s going by means of.”
It’s a press release that rings true as I play Reunion. Following the eyebrow-raising finish of Double Publicity — whose parallel-universe-spanning antics paved the best way for Chloe’s much-publicized return — I’m relieved to see the writers at Deck 9 took a extra grounded strategy to their preliminary reconciliation in Reunion. After she first meets Chloe, Max stays up all evening sitting by Chloe’s facet, terrified that she might disappear from her life but once more. It’s a far-fetched situation that’s written in such a means 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 completed is actually an illustration of mastery and ability,” says DeVries.
Picture: Sq. Enix
As each actors ready to revisit their iconic characters, it wasn’t simply DeVries who had returned to Life is Unusual as a distinct particular person. The place Telle initially offered simply the voice for Max Caulfield, this time round she additionally discovered herself performing Max’s movement seize. But attempting as she may to match the physicality of Caulfield from the primary recreation, Telle immediately discovered her physique failing to cooperate.
Telle didn’t notice 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 on the time, however I simply couldn’t get my physique to look precisely like I wanted Max’s to look from the earlier footage of her,” Telle explains. “Each time we’d do a scene, I must simply stand there and wait on the quantity whereas everybody was behind the desk muttering, ‘Why is her arm protruding like that?” She provides, “It was a psychological train in staying calm and accepting criticism about one thing that I used to be born with, one thing that I’ve to change into capable of morph by means of and evolve out of. It was a problem, 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 complete story of Reunion performs out stays to be seen. But if there’s one factor that’s undoubtedly genuine about Max and Chloe’s shock 2026 swan music, it’s the 2 central performances behind it, which, for one final time, are bringing this beloved duo again to life.
“I feel so extremely of Max,” says Telle. “And I’m so grateful for this closure … and to have been capable of be part of her story on this intimate, profound, and delightful means.”