The 10th anniversary of Life is Strange is fast approaching: in January next year it’ll have been a full decade since Max, Chloe, and co. first entered our lives and, in many cases, won our hearts. For many of us who really loved Life is Strange upon first encountering it, it’s fair to say that we’re still just as besotted with the world and its characters all these years down the line as we were back in the day.
For a fairly niche choose-your-own-adventure series about marginalised superheroes growing up in modern-day USA, Life is Strange has become a surprisingly sprawling franchise over the past decade, no doubt spurred on by the deep pockets of publisher and IP owner Square Enix. Life is Strange: Double Exposure, due for release on October 29th, will be the fifth main game in the series; but to focus on mainline releases alone is to rob yourself of some delightful side-stories in the form of DLC chapters, comic books, a planned TV series, and now even a couple of novels.
Life is Strange: Heatwaves was published on July 31st, a conveniently-timed prose addition to the franchise for anyone itching to get an LiS fix in before Halloween rolls around. It follows Life is Strange: Steph’s Story as the series’ second prose entry and, now that there are two LiS tie-in novels to compare and contrast, I’m more confident than ever in my overall assessment of the current state of the franchise. Sure, like most long-running series, it’s essentially a fanservice machine; but I’m consistently impressed by the wildly different interpretations of “fanservice” at work here.
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