Can The Apocalypse Be Stopped In Final Episode Of 'Life Is Strange?'

By Aarati Shah, Christian Post Contributor Saturday, October 24, 2015

The final action-packed, mind-bending episode of the episodic game series "Life Is Strange" is over. Players of this off-beat and critically acclaimed game have relived a 'strange life' with Maxine 'Max' Caulfield, making difficult choices and surviving. Now, Episode 5 of "Life Is Strange" ends on a highly emotional and powerful note.

Developed by Dontnod Entertainment and published by Square Enix, "Life Is Strange" is an episodic graphic video game that features Maxine "Max" Caulfield, a photography student, who discovers that she has the ability to rewind time. With this ability, she can go back in time and alter her choices and have alternate events, something like the butterfly effect.

"Life Is Strange" consists of five episodes and the first episode was released January 30, 2015 on Windows, PS3, PS4, Xbox One & Xbox 360.

Over the episodes, players have lived as Max and travelled her character arc where they had to keep on making choices and adjust the narrative so that they take control of the happenings by going back in time and altering events.

The end of Episode 4 of "Life Is Strange" gave gamers enough clues to expect an end that would be shocking, to say the least. Episode 5, titled 'Polarized,' went further and almost felt like a horror game.

In this final episode, Max is caught by Mr. Jefferson. She is drugged and quickly needs to get out of this situation. The episode starts right away with tension as gamers see her in the dark room from the previous episode. She wants desperately to escape and set things on the right track. So she starts rewinding time.

Max discovers the horrible truth - that even after making the correct choices, time-altering has changed even the smallest details and every action seems weird. Gamers get an inkling of something terrible when the dialogues become distorted. Events from the first episode go strange.

One nightmare section has Max trapped in her own dorm room with a never-ending corridor that always brings her back to the beginning of the hallway, no matter what time-bending antics she does.

Max has two choices - one unleashes an apocalypse that dooms the world. The other has a short ending.

Whatever gamers choose, the game teaches the lesson that the choices one makes affects others, especially the ones they love. That is the takeaway of "Life Is Strange."