I love Life Is Strange, but man, do those of us who like men get the short end of the stick in this series. I get it, this started as a story about Max and Chloe, and the male love interest…oh shoot, I think I just forgot his name while writing this…Warren! Warren was just an afterthought. Life Is Strange: Reunion quadruples down on this treatment of him, with the only mention of Warren coming in a text message in which Max asks “whatever happened to that guy” who could’ve been her high school sweetheart. Reunion lets you import whether or not Max and Chloe were in a relationship in the original game, but doesn’t give a damn if you were in one with Warren or not. I’m not even here to defend the guy whose name I literally forgot, but playing Reunion really did remind me that Life Is Strange’s male love interests are always worse than its romanceable women.
Each Life Is Strange game, with the exception of the prequel Life Is Strange: Before the Storm, has two potential love interests, one male and one female. Life Is Strange 2 gave protagonist Sean Diaz both Cassidy and Finn, two drifters who are depicted as fairly different, despite their shared goals. Both are caring in their own ways, but Cassidy’s potential romantic connection with Sean is much more fleshed out and tender, and culminates in a much longer love scene. Finn, meanwhile, has his romance locked behind a decision to put Daniel, Sean’s telekinetic younger brother, in harm’s way. If you don’t choose to go along with a robbery scheme contingent on using the kid’s powers, Finn will go through with it anyway, betraying your trust and proving you were right to be wary of him. Yes, there’s nuance, obviously people are messy, of course life is strange. But compared to Cassidy’s romance, it’s pretty obviously a markedly less healthy relationship.
The split between romance options in Life Is Strange: True Colors’ is maybe not as dramatic, but there is a similar divide between Steph and Ryan in terms of which relationship is probably good in the long run for protagonist Alex Chen, an empath who can see emotions as physical auras around the people of Haven Springs. Steph is a ride or die, grounds Alex as a friend or girlfriend in a new town, and supports her throughout the entirety of her investigation into the death of her brother. Ryan can be all of those things too, but that relationship’s foundation can be shaken to the point of betrayal if the player hasn’t done everything right, including some pretty arbitrary stuff early on in the game. Does it add some delicious angst and tension to the love story? Yes. Is it determined by some of the most asinine narrative design the series has ever put into place? Sure is. But damn, where’s my unproblematic Life Is Strange boyfriend when I need him?
It really only gets worse in Life Is Strange: Double Exposure and Reunion, which bring us back to Max and give us probably the worst love interest the series has ever put forth: Vinh Lang. I can give the other men I’ve pursued in Life Is Strange a pass for their circumstances and all the complexities of their lived experience, but man, this dude just sucks. He’s a condescending prick; I can’t fathom why Max would see anything in him, and his personality is so repellent that I can’t even imagine holding my nose long enough to go in for a hypothetical kiss. As such, I romanced no one in Double Exposure.
By the time I got to Reunion, it wasn’t surprising that Deck Nine was once again pushing the Chloe relationship. She and Amanda, the spunky college bartender, were easily the preferable choices of the three, though if you’re someone who actually liked Vinh, leave a comment and tell me why because I need to know what attracted you to this man.
Deck Nine has positioned Reunion as the “finale” of the Life Is Strange series, which is a bummer because the game is a pandering, fanservice-y mess, but also because it means that Life Is Strange probably is never going to get a great male romance. I would have loved to see a gay relationship that got as much love as Max and Chloe’s did. I appreciate that Life Is Strange portrays all sorts of emotional complexities and dynamics, but man, it would have been nice for one of these games to have given me a boyfriend who didn’t set off my fight or flight response.
