Part of me can't shake the feeling that Kate was supposed to jump off the roof.
Life is Strange, an episodic, choose-your-own-adventure with more talking than killing, is a coming-of-age story, and here's the obligatory spoiler warning: Major plot points follow. Such stories tend to be as much about failure as anything else, forcing players to recognize and accept the impassable gap between their choices and the unintended consequences of them.
About that roof. Kate, so despondent over the bullying and harassment she experiences after an embarrassing moment, is poised to jump from the roof of her private school unless our hero, a senior named Max, can talk her down. When I play this game with my wife, we get Max to do just that, and the episode ends with tears and quiet hope. I'm relieved, but it feels wrong. Like we broke something. Not because Kate's death would have been more dramatic, a bit of tragedy on the way to Max's self-actualization, but because it felt a little too neat. We acted with the best intentions, and experienced the best outcome. No surprises; no friction.
What kind of growing up is that?
Life is Strange grants do-overs. Early on in your journey with Max Caulfield, a mild-mannered teen who has returned to Arcadia Bay, Oregon1, to study photography at the exclusive Blackwell Academy, you (and she) discover she has a gift. Max can rewind time, the world blurring as she moves back in time, memories intact and free to change whatever just happened.
On Max's first day at Blackwell, a girl named Chloe is shot. Max rewinds time to save her. And then everything goes sideways.
How do you learn to make the right choice (or at least the best choice) in a world where you can have unlimited do-overs? That's the dilemma Life is Strange grapples with during its five episodes. It's easy for players and Max alike to do anything and everything, engaging in complex social engineering experiments, spying and snooping and manipulating---just the sort of stuff you'd do if you were a teenager who could control time.
It also provides an opportunity to play the hero. Max can act confidently and decisively, knowing exactly what the consequences of her actions are because she's already experienced them. If she could protect Chloe, maybe she can protect everyone else.
During the week in which Life is Strange takes place, Max engineers the hell out of her life: She explores alternate timelines, tries on different personas, and attempts to save Arcadia Bay from the evils that plague it. Life is Strange is largely interested in the quotidian, small-scale effects of time-shifting and how Max experiences them with others, particularly as she grows closer to Chloe.
Chloe is Max's confidante, the only person aware of newfound talent. Together they try to solve the mystery of Chloe's missing friend/lover Rachel Amber. Rachel's disappearance unravels half the town, exposing high school drug rings, abuse, and a host of other made-for-TV problems.
The mystery plotline is a bit cheesy, but the game's loving focus on its heroines keeps it from overwhelming the a story that is emotive and sweet. The mysteries and hidden horrors of Arcadia Bay owe a clear debt to Twin Peaks, but it's more like an especially ambitious episode of Friday Night Lights in terms of composition, sound design, and general tone. It's a heartfelt teen drama inside a paranormal thriller, a distinction that is the source of occasional tonal friction and the game's most resonant moments.
Moments like Kate. Kate Marsh is a sweet, quiet girl, zealously religious but with a wellspring of kindness that softens the harsh edge of her beliefs. By the time the player meets her, she's had enough. Someone drugged her at a party, and there's a video of her in a compromising position. She endures extreme harassment, and the second episode finds her on the roof, ready to jump.
This is a pivotal moment in the game, because it's the only one you can't undo. In an incredible feat of dexterity, Max stops time entirely so she might reach her friend on the roof. As a result, she's drained her powers. They're useless. She's got just once chance to save Kate.
I told you my wife and I succeeded in saving Kate's life. What I didn't tell you is the first time we played, we failed. Kate jumped.
Life is Strange was a unique experience because, as someone who's played a lot of games, I rarely take mulligans. I enjoy the journey, and the discovery. Mistakes are part of that. Things go wrong, failure is part of the experience. So long as I'm still engaged, all the better.
My wife takes a difference approach. She's a social worker, so stories like Kate's are nothing new. She often is as uncertain of outcomes as Max surely is when talking to Kate. She can't always know if she made the right choice. Games allow her to see the consequences and try again. So even as I was soaking in the cutting sadness of Kate's death, my wife reset the PlayStation 4. She couldn't let Kate die. So we tried again, and saved her.
When Max couldn't manage a do-over, we supplied one for her.
Life is Strange exists in this fascinating, contradictory place. For Max, the story is in many ways a journey to understand that there isn't always one right choice. Sometimes her abilities fail her, and sometimes failure can't be undone. For the player, though, it's a game-length exploration of how choice works in this type of game system, and why we make the choices we do. One irreversible choice revealed more about why my wife and I were playing than anything else could have.
In the final episode, players learn Max's abilities has wreaked havoc. An impossible storm is approaching Arcadia Bay, and Max can't change it. She's thrown the world out of order, and it's fighting back.
Standing by the lighthouse at Arcadia Bay, watching the storm roll in, Max and Chloe realize what they must do. Max can prevent the coming destruction, but must first undo everything she's done until then. She must return to the moment when she first used her power---the moment she saved Chloe---and let it pass without interference. To save the town, she must let Chloe die.
No matter the choice you make here, Max fails. She must sacrifice the town, or the person she loves. Life is Strange is the story of a beautiful failure.
Any choice Max makes threatens to nullify everything she’s done until now. As a player, I can replay episodes and cherish the freedom the game affords me, even if the ending was bittersweet at best. Max doesn't have that luxury. No matter what she does, she loses.
I can't fix that. And maybe that's why, even though it still feels like the wrong choice to me, I don't regret reloading to save Kate. I've already had my coming of age story, and I know I can't save everyone. Instead, I can accept that Max's journey isn't mine, and I can find solace in that. There are small, safe places in games where you can reject ugly, unintended consequences. Where you actually can play the hero. I think Max would appreciate the help.
*Correction 1/15/2016 at 9:41 a.m. ET: An earlier version of this story incorrectly located the fictional town in Washington. It is set in Oregon. *
