Deck Nine Games will be following up on the acclaimed Life is Strange by Dontnod Entertainment with Life is Strange: Before The Storm. As the name implies, the story will be sent before the events of the first game, focusing on Chloe Price as she grows up without her father, enters her rebellious stage and finally meets Rachel Amber. There’s definitely more to it all but unlike the first season, it will all be contained within three episodes instead of five.
The developer has noted that the total run-time of the prequel will be six to nine hours versus the 10 to 12 hours of the first game. Lead writer Zak Garris was asked by GameSpot about the decision to condense the story to this three episode format as opposed to five. The former noted that it was all about the story of Chloe being told.
“It actually wasn’t quite that ‘shape’ of a decision. When we were first talking to Square about what we would do with the IP and what kind of a story we would tell in Arcadia Bay, we weren’t looking at a particular length over another. We were contemplating stories of all shapes and sizes.
“What really it came down to is: the story we found that, for Chloe in this chapter of her life, it genuinely felt like about a three-episode story. As opposed to taking what we were all really in love with and excited by and trying to try change it to fit a larger model, making it a three-episode story seemed like it. Ultimately, that’s what we decided to do.”
Life is Strange: Before The Storm’s first episode will release on August 31st for Xbox One, PS4 and PC.