Life is Strange’s tenth anniversary is fast approaching: next January will mark exactly ten years since Max, Chloe and the rest of the gang first entered our lives, and in many cases won our hearts. For many of us who first encountered Life is Strange, it’s fair to say that, all these years later, we’re still just as enamored with the world and its characters as we were back then.
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A fairly niche choose-your-own-adventure series about a fringe superhero growing up in modern America, Life is Strange has become a surprisingly large franchise over the past decade, no doubt thanks to the deep pockets of publisher and IP owner Square Enix. Life is Strange: Double Exposure will be the fifth main game in the series when it releases on October 29, but focusing only on the main releases will make you miss out on some delightful spin-off stories, such as DLC chapters, comic books, a planned TV series, and now even a few novels.
Life is Strange: Heatwave comes out on July 31, and it’s a perfectly timed work of prose for anyone who wants to finish Life is Strange before Halloween. It’s the second work of prose in the series after Life is Strange: Stephen’s Story, and now with two Life is Strange-related novels to compare and contrast, I feel more confident than ever in my overall assessment of the current state of the series. Sure, like most long-running series, it’s essentially a fan-service machine; but I’ve always been impressed by the different interpretations of “fan-service” here.
You only have to compare Stephen’s Story to Heatwave to see what I mean. A sequel set between Before the Storm and True Colors, Stephen’s Story follows fan-favorite Stephen Gingrich’s journey from a bit part in BTS to a supporting character (and optional love interest) in Heatwave. Written by Rosie Saul, who has done an exact imitation of Stephen’s voice in the game, this spin-off novel is a delightful look at what the average denizen of Arcadia Bay does, thinks, and feels in the aftermath of the original game’s devastation. If there’s a downside, it’s that the book isn’t at all surprising to anyone who’s played the game. Stephen’s Story was planned out from start to finish before Saul wrote a word, and while they offer a perfect insight into Stephen’s inner life, there’s not a whole lot for story lovers to dig into.
Heat Wave, written by Brittney Morris (who, incidentally, is also the writer of the Marvel Spider-Man: Miles Morales spinoff novel), takes a very different approach. Set in one of the six possible endings of Life is Strange: True Colors, Heat Wave tells the story of what would have happened if Alex had chosen to leave Haven Springs to pursue a music career with new girlfriend Steph. The preface makes it very clear that Heat Wave – like all other spinoff material that is bound to follow one timeline or another to some degree – is not intended to canonize a particular ending of the game, but simply to showcase one possible future that results from a particular set of choices. It’s less of a character study, like Steph’s Story, and more of a small-town mystery in line with most games in the series, with plenty of B-plot time devoted to further developing the much-welcomed (but optional) romance between Alex and Steph.
So yes, both books are clearly there for fan service—and let’s be honest, what video game-related novel isn’t?—but despite that, the approach taken in each case is very different. This isn’t a review, but if you want to jump to conclusions, I’d have to say that Steven’s Story captures the characters and world of Life is Strange in a way that’s closer to the games, but Heatwave is more interesting because of its extension into an original narrative. Super fans of LiS should definitely read both books; casual or non-fans of the series will probably be disappointed in either case (again, that’s the essence of the related novels).
Although narratively unconnected to the upcoming Life is Strange: Double Exposure — which returns to the perspective of original protagonist Max Caulfield, fittingly continuing her story 10 years after the events of the first game — Heatwaves risked alienating some of its audience to deliver a sequel that satisfied the rest of the fan base, and shows why Squeenix’s unexpected decision to make a direct Life is Strange sequel a decade later isn’t a reason to categorically dismiss the new game. Much like sending Alex and Steph off into the sunset, making a sequel for the original protagonists has been a hot topic among fans since the conclusion of the first game. But for fans who enjoy the Hard Choices series, the LiS community is far from groupthink, and not everyone is happy to see Double Exposure be a sequel to two different endings to Max’s story, meaning Chloe will end up being sidelined in some way.
Still, it seems a little unfair to say that a sequel featuring Max means the developers have run out of ideas for the series, since each core entry has been so clearly different from what came before it. After the original, there was a prequel, then an inelegantly numbered but unconnected sequel, then an anthology-style sequel, and now a direct sequel, which might make Life is Strange as confusing as one of its disastrously bisexual protagonists, but at least you can’t accuse them of rehashing the same ideas over and over again. If a sixth LiS game comes out in a few years, the only thing I can predict is what they’ll do next, and that’s the last thing I want to see.
The Life is Strange novels (and the comics series, to a lesser extent) are heading down a similarly chaotic trajectory right now; but luckily, chaotic good is the direction I’m most comfortable with. While Heatwave has sadly received minimal marketing from Square, I’d be surprised if they didn’t follow up with another book at some point in the future. Now that we’ve broken the seal on the game sequel endings that didn’t feature time travel as a convenient narrative device, can we expect a Life is Strange 2 sequel novel someday? Probably not, and I think that one branch of the series might actually be dead and buried… but then again, as we’ve already established, Life is Strange seems happy to be bold in giving fans what they want.
