10 Alternate Video Game Endings That DRASTICALLY Change The Story
6. "Just This Once, Chloe, Everybody Lives!" (Life Is Strange)
For a game all about time-manipulation, it's fitting that Life Is Strange's original ending took inspiration from one of Doctor Who's most famous quotes.
Life is Strange's conclusion offers one of the starkest choices ever given in a video game. After 5 downloadable episodes worth of time-altering shenanigans, main character Max Caulfield is confronted with the fact that her constant alterations to the timeline have resulted in the creation of a temporal storm that will annihilate her hometown. To save the town, Max has to let the original timeline play out and allow her lover, Chloe Price, to die at the hands of a serial killer.
It's a heartbreaking finale, but there were originally plans to mitigate Chloe's sacrifice.
Co-director Michel Koch revealed that the original plan was to put Chloe in a coma, rather than have her killed outright, as the writers were hesitant to fully pull the trigger on her demise. However, as Koch goes on to elaborate, this would trivialize the finale and actively go against Life is Strange's central theme: That choices matter, and you need to accept the consequences of your actions rather than constantly try to undo them.