Life Is Strange asks players to consider the cost of self-sacrifice

What would you do if you could go back in time? What different decisions would you make? Would you use your power to serve others or merely for your own personal gain?

These are the questions posed by Dontnod’s new episodic adventure game, Life Is Strange. The game gives players the ability to manipulate time, asking them to consider the ethics of that power and whether or not they will embrace the cost that comes with putting others ahead of themselves.

Dontnod represents a changing tide in video game development. The studio faced pressure from publishers to use a male protagonist for Life Is Strange and its previous game, Remember Me. Publishers believed a male protagonist would lead to better sales. But in both instances, Dontnod insisted on using a female protagonist, a positive sign for an industry that’s been anything but welcoming to women, who make up 48 percent of all gamers.

Life Is Strange also demonstrates the maturation of the medium: The game does not include any combat. Instead, it’s a personal coming-of-age story about a strong female character.

Life Is Strange will be released in five independent episodes. The first, which came out Jan. 29, puts players in control of Max Caufield, a high school senior studying photography at a prestigious college preparatory school. Early in the game, Max discovers she possesses the ability to rewind time. Soon after, she witnesses a classmate at Blackwell Academy being attacked and killed in the girls bathroom. Max uses her ability to go back in time and take measures to prevent the murder.

While Max initially uses her ability nobly, players soon are presented with more difficult questions of when and how to use her power. With every opportunity to change the past, players can see the results of different decisions before determining whether to press on or go back.

Sometimes playing with time seems harmless. In one sequence, Max’s photography professor asks a question she doesn’t know the answer to. She’s further embarrassed when the game’s most cruel and obnoxious character answers the question correctly. Players can rewind time and and use the correct answer to impress the professor and frustrate the obnoxious classmate. Other instances of time manipulation are more sinister. Players often are tempted with manipulating time to invade the privacy of other students. These are the weakest segments of this first episode, because Max’s actions have little to no consequences.

In the strongest segments of the game, players must choose whether to use Max’s power to protect her reputation and scholarship status at Blackwell or to sacrifice for the good of others. While such decisions may seem obvious, Life Is Strange does a great job of accurately illustrating the competing pressures teens face, making the decisions surprisingly nuanced. Sacrificing for the good of her friends is never easy and always costs Max a great deal.

Life Is Strange is rated Mature for sexual themes, violence, strong language, and use of drugs. While those elements accurately depict the pressures and temptations teens face, I did find them troubling, particularly in Max’s relationship with her childhood friend, Chloe. When Chloe makes some really destructive choices, players don’t have the option to question or truly help her.

Life is full of regrets and failures, which is partly why video games are so appealing: They tend to give players lots of chances to correct past mistakes by restarting levels or reloading checkpoints. But those do-overs are only to improve performance. Life Is Strange gives players this ability in order to reshape the story. Despite its missteps, Dontnod has done something really unique by taking our desire to start over and challenging players to consider what they will do with it.