It's hard to imagine a world without you
Pointless trivia about Life Is Strange. Warning: Major spoilers for the game ahead. Those who haven't played the game yet and want to should look away now.
Throughout the game, Max often encounters a ghostly doe that is unaffected by her time powers, always remaining in the same place even if Max rewinds. In the second episode, one of the optional photo collectibles is of this doe, yet when you examine the photo in Max's journal, the doe does not appear in it. Though it's not explicitly said in the game itself what this doe is, Dontnod have said that it's the ghost of Rachel Amber, trying to tell Max what happened to her. Notice that the spot the doe appears in episode 2 is the same spot that it's later revealed Rachel was buried.
After Mark Jefferson was revealed to be the killer at the end of episode 4, a meme sprouted on the internet of a screenshot of his face framed in shadow during the scene in question, with a menacing expression, captioned "I told you to hand in your fucking photo". Dontnod actually noticed this and put a nod (no pun intended) to it in episode 5, where during Max's nightmare sequence, she receives a text from Mr. Jefferson saying "How hard is it to turn in one fucking selfie?"
According to the creators, the "Sacrifice Arcadia Bay" ending (where you choose to let Chloe live) was deliberately meant to be ambiguous in details such as how many people, if any, survived and what happens next. It's left to the player's imagination to decide.
Chloe's voice actress, Ashly Burch, has offered some of her own personal opinions on Chloe in interviews. According to her, Chloe's gender identity and sexual preference are both fluid, and her love for Rachel was unrequited. She said, "I think Chloe saw [Rachel] as a goddess, and I imagine Chloe being sort of like an excitable puppy dog around her, always wanting to impress her and get her approval. I’m actually not sure if they dated. I imagine Rachel being more mature and poised, and really enjoying Chloe’s company and her devotion, but keeping her at a bit of a distance."
One of the working titles for the game while it was still in development was What If?. A reference to this can be found in the game, in the form of graffiti reading "I'd rather lead a life full of oh wells than what ifs."
In episode 1, if the player examines the television in Victoria's room, Max makes a comment about wanting to watch Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, calling it a great movie. This seems like an odd line of dialogue to have in a game published by Square Enix, given that Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was a box office flop. Apparently, it was one of the lead writers' ideas, and Square Enix were hesitant about it but he insisted.
Dontnod revealed that they went to many publishing companies before settling on Square Enix, but all of them wanted them to change the main character to a male. Square Enix were the first ones to let them go ahead with their original idea without making any significant changes.
A few times in the game, Max is shown tearing photographs in half - except the photographs are Polaroids, which cannot be torn in half. The creators admitted that they knew this, but put in the scenes anyway for dramatic effect.
In episode 2, Warren's school chemistry experiment needs to have chlorine added to complete it successfully. However, pure chlorine is a deadly gas at room temperature. Given the setting, it was likely meant to be a chemical compound containing chlorine, such as sodium chloride or hypochlorous acid.
The game often uses chaos theory (with specific references to the butterfly effect, given the many actual butterflies that appear) to explain why Max's time powers are the cause of the tornado heading towards Arcadia Bay. However, chaos theory only deals with the behaviour of a system that can have radically different outcomes based on the initial conditions. In this situation, chaos theory would only apply to the changes that result from the choices Max makes, and still wouldn't explain phenomena that are strange or outright impossible (such as the two moons appearing in the sky in episode 4).
In episode 5, minor character Truss Limpbow, a caricature of radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, is voiced by Christian Divine, one of the game's writers.
The game was heavily inspired by Twin Peaks, and Rachel is essentially this game's version of Laura Palmer. Graffiti on the bathroom mirror in the Two Whales Diner reads "FIRE WALK WITH ME" (and Max can take a photo of it for an optional photo collectible), and Chloe's license plate reads "TWNPKS".
Chloe's robot panda keychain is a reference to Jax from Remember Me, the first game developed by Dontnod Entertainment.
Episode 5 was released the day before "Back to the Future Day" (October 21, 2015), the date Marty McFly travels to in Back to the Future Part II.
In episode 3, Chloe was originally going to say "Max, if I had your power, I would go all the way back and change everything! Everything!" The line was removed most likely because it gave away the fact that Max was about to do just that.
Originally, Rachel Amber was going to appear in the Dark Room sequence in episode 5, blaming Max for her death.
During a charity livestream, Dontnod confirmed that the person Rachel said changed her life right before she vanished and the person she refers to in her letter to Chloe that Max can find in the junkyard in episode 2 is Mark Jefferson.
Throughout the game, the tornado heading to Arcadia Bay is repeatedly referred to as an E6. Tornadoes are usually measured on the EF (Enhanced Fujita) scale, but even if E6 was meant to be EF-6, it would still be wrong, since the EF-scale only goes up to 5. Furthermore, the EF-scale only measures the damage done by the tornado, so the tornado couldn't be classified on the EF-scale before it even hit land. Finally, an EF-5 tornado is one that causes total destruction. In the "Sacrifice Arcadia Bay" ending, there are some damaged yet still standing buildings and the town is still more or less there, making the damage consistent with an EF-3 at best.
Throughout the game, Max often encounters a ghostly doe that is unaffected by her time powers, always remaining in the same place even if Max rewinds. In the second episode, one of the optional photo collectibles is of this doe, yet when you examine the photo in Max's journal, the doe does not appear in it. Though it's not explicitly said in the game itself what this doe is, Dontnod have said that it's the ghost of Rachel Amber, trying to tell Max what happened to her. Notice that the spot the doe appears in episode 2 is the same spot that it's later revealed Rachel was buried.
After Mark Jefferson was revealed to be the killer at the end of episode 4, a meme sprouted on the internet of a screenshot of his face framed in shadow during the scene in question, with a menacing expression, captioned "I told you to hand in your fucking photo". Dontnod actually noticed this and put a nod (no pun intended) to it in episode 5, where during Max's nightmare sequence, she receives a text from Mr. Jefferson saying "How hard is it to turn in one fucking selfie?"
According to the creators, the "Sacrifice Arcadia Bay" ending (where you choose to let Chloe live) was deliberately meant to be ambiguous in details such as how many people, if any, survived and what happens next. It's left to the player's imagination to decide.
Chloe's voice actress, Ashly Burch, has offered some of her own personal opinions on Chloe in interviews. According to her, Chloe's gender identity and sexual preference are both fluid, and her love for Rachel was unrequited. She said, "I think Chloe saw [Rachel] as a goddess, and I imagine Chloe being sort of like an excitable puppy dog around her, always wanting to impress her and get her approval. I’m actually not sure if they dated. I imagine Rachel being more mature and poised, and really enjoying Chloe’s company and her devotion, but keeping her at a bit of a distance."
One of the working titles for the game while it was still in development was What If?. A reference to this can be found in the game, in the form of graffiti reading "I'd rather lead a life full of oh wells than what ifs."
In episode 1, if the player examines the television in Victoria's room, Max makes a comment about wanting to watch Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, calling it a great movie. This seems like an odd line of dialogue to have in a game published by Square Enix, given that Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was a box office flop. Apparently, it was one of the lead writers' ideas, and Square Enix were hesitant about it but he insisted.
Dontnod revealed that they went to many publishing companies before settling on Square Enix, but all of them wanted them to change the main character to a male. Square Enix were the first ones to let them go ahead with their original idea without making any significant changes.
A few times in the game, Max is shown tearing photographs in half - except the photographs are Polaroids, which cannot be torn in half. The creators admitted that they knew this, but put in the scenes anyway for dramatic effect.
In episode 2, Warren's school chemistry experiment needs to have chlorine added to complete it successfully. However, pure chlorine is a deadly gas at room temperature. Given the setting, it was likely meant to be a chemical compound containing chlorine, such as sodium chloride or hypochlorous acid.
The game often uses chaos theory (with specific references to the butterfly effect, given the many actual butterflies that appear) to explain why Max's time powers are the cause of the tornado heading towards Arcadia Bay. However, chaos theory only deals with the behaviour of a system that can have radically different outcomes based on the initial conditions. In this situation, chaos theory would only apply to the changes that result from the choices Max makes, and still wouldn't explain phenomena that are strange or outright impossible (such as the two moons appearing in the sky in episode 4).
In episode 5, minor character Truss Limpbow, a caricature of radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, is voiced by Christian Divine, one of the game's writers.
The game was heavily inspired by Twin Peaks, and Rachel is essentially this game's version of Laura Palmer. Graffiti on the bathroom mirror in the Two Whales Diner reads "FIRE WALK WITH ME" (and Max can take a photo of it for an optional photo collectible), and Chloe's license plate reads "TWNPKS".
Chloe's robot panda keychain is a reference to Jax from Remember Me, the first game developed by Dontnod Entertainment.
Episode 5 was released the day before "Back to the Future Day" (October 21, 2015), the date Marty McFly travels to in Back to the Future Part II.
In episode 3, Chloe was originally going to say "Max, if I had your power, I would go all the way back and change everything! Everything!" The line was removed most likely because it gave away the fact that Max was about to do just that.
Originally, Rachel Amber was going to appear in the Dark Room sequence in episode 5, blaming Max for her death.
During a charity livestream, Dontnod confirmed that the person Rachel said changed her life right before she vanished and the person she refers to in her letter to Chloe that Max can find in the junkyard in episode 2 is Mark Jefferson.
Throughout the game, the tornado heading to Arcadia Bay is repeatedly referred to as an E6. Tornadoes are usually measured on the EF (Enhanced Fujita) scale, but even if E6 was meant to be EF-6, it would still be wrong, since the EF-scale only goes up to 5. Furthermore, the EF-scale only measures the damage done by the tornado, so the tornado couldn't be classified on the EF-scale before it even hit land. Finally, an EF-5 tornado is one that causes total destruction. In the "Sacrifice Arcadia Bay" ending, there are some damaged yet still standing buildings and the town is still more or less there, making the damage consistent with an EF-3 at best.
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