Life Is Strange: Before The Storm Episode 1 Review - 7 Ups & 2 Downs

Something truly great about Before the Storm is that it allows players to venture back into the fascinating, deceptively quaint world of Life Is Strange and experience it from a brand-new perspective.

Chloe is so very different to Max, and this pays off as we experience the inner turmoil she struggled with while Max was away and likely still struggled with behind the scenes by the time her friend came back.

Plus, we also see how different the landscapes of Arcadia Bay and Blackwell Academy were during this time, the areas in town Chloe is more inclined to visit, as well as her peculiar relationship with Rachel Amber, who is exceptionally intriguing in her own right.

Slowly but surely, the things they share with one another and experience independently begin to click into place, causing their roles into the original game to make so much more sense.

Not only that, but the supernatural/mystery elements of the first game do return, just in a subtler way, such as Chloe's visions of her deceased father and the raven; Rachel's apparent spirit animal, as it were.

It's a story with just the right amount of laughs, emotional punches and callbacks to keep fans of the first game happy while the game also does its own thing. And to cap things off, episode one's bewildering ending makes you need to see what happens next.