In a series of games known for making you choose between dialogue options or make decisions that matter, where the phrase “girl versus city” will always have weight, Life is Strange: Reunion takes into account the many choices you could have made up to this point.
Therefore, when you start a new save, the game asks questions about the decisions you made in the previous games of the main Life is Strange series to adapt the gameplay to the canon of your universe. Here’s what each “Inherited Choice” in Life is Strange: Reunion affects.
Since this is a late part of the series that relies on past decisions to shape its world, information about the “Inherited Choices” in Life is Strange: Reunion and their impact on the game contains spoilers for the entire Life is Strange series.
Make five choices that will determine the events in Caledonia
Save
Creating sequels for games without definitive endings, like the Life is Strange series, is a daunting task. Reunion, being quite far in the overall chronology, can seem intimidating due to the number of your decisions in previous games and the potential timelines that come with them.
Luckily, the development team found a way out. Before starting a new save in Life is Strange: Reunion, you will be asked to determine Max’s relationships with other characters. You will see five photos with heroes and key decisions from the previous games in the series. The menu will tactfully ask how you played the previous parts to make the world match the one you left it in. The game uses your choice to shape the world you will experience in the new save.
If you are dissatisfied with your past decisions, you can technically change them here by lying to the game about what happened.
The game, apparently, does not check save files, so it believes you on your word — use this information to see the endings you are interested in.
Many events of the main game unfold in the same way, regardless of the choice, but in games where decisions matter, there is always a reason to play them several times. At least to see how different decisions affect the world in different ways. These can be minor things like texts on Max’s phone or mentions that other characters make in conversations with each other. Or they can be serious things, like whether you were madly in love with someone earlier in the story or kept the relationship platonic.
Save
If you want to really turn everything upside down, you can also randomize the decisions made in the past for your save. The game will choose the answers to these five “Inherited Choices” itself and let you play on.
Amanda Thomas
One of the most harmless decisions you will have to make when setting up the “Inherited Choices” at the beginning of Life is Strange: Reunion is to determine the nature of Max’s relationship with Amanda during the events of Life is Strange: Double Exposure.
Overall, not much depends on this decision — you will see a few different dialogues between Max and Chloe, as well as different text messages on the phone between Max and Amanda, but apart from these details, nothing significant will change.
Chloe Price
One of the most important decisions you will have to make at the beginning of each new save is the question of whether Chloe stayed alive or died in the first Life is Strange game.
The entire five-episode game led to a choice between saving Chloe’s life and saving the city of Arcadia Bay. Naturally, since Chloe returns in Life is Strange: Reunion anyway, you will need to determine the nature of their relationship and how both heroines relate to each other.
Save
If you say that Chloe survived the events in Arcadia Bay and escaped with Max, the pair will recall the past much more often, regardless of the type of their previous relationship. If Chloe died during the disaster, you will hear Max talking to another Chloe about how she is not the person Max lost, and you will learn a bit more about how Max coped with her death.
In any case, choosing one option will block your access to in-game decisions related to the other. This is probably the most important decision you will make when creating a new save. Like much of the material from the first game, a significant part of what you can do in Life is Strange: Reunion depends on whether you are playing as the original Chloe, who survived the destruction of Arcadia Bay, or as Chloe from an alternate timeline who never died in this reality.
Besides the in-game consequences of the “girl versus city” debate, there is a trophy for completing the game in both scenarios of this choice. To get it, you will need at least two playthroughs: one where Chloe survived and continued on in Reunion, and another where Chloe did not escape Arcadia Bay in your Max timeline.
Max and Chloe
Perhaps the most important decision you will make at the beginning of a new save is to determine whether Max and Chloe’s relationship was platonic or romantic during the events of the first Life is Strange.
Save
Regardless of what happened between them before, during the events of Life is Strange: Reunion, you will spend a lot of time with both Max Caulfield and Chloe Price, and for them, often using their abilities and trying to prevent a fire that will almost certainly break out at Caledonia University.
However, there are several moments in the game where you may be given the opportunity to kiss Chloe, and overall, she is more receptive if you decided that the pair had a romantic relationship before. You will have an advantage if you say they were together during the events of the first game, but you can still end up together even if that’s not the case.
Safia Lwellen-Fyad
While it may not have as much impact on the overall plot now, before starting the game in Life is Strange: Reunion, you will need to decide whether Max supported Safia at the end of Life is Strange: Double Exposure. We won’t spoil the ending here, but there is only one moment in the current game’s storyline that this decision will affect.
Save
When trying to save Safia closer to the end of the game, although it’s not the only factor, Max’s support at the end of Double Exposure will significantly facilitate saving Safia when her life is in danger. She trusts you much more if you supported her before!
Vinh Lang
One of the less intense decisions you will make in Life is Strange: Reunion is this last option, which will ask whether your relationship with Vinh Lang during the events of Life is Strange: Double Exposure was romantic or platonic.
Like with Amanda, you won’t see a big difference between these options. Depending on your choice, you will have a different set of text messages between them, but even the subsequent scenes with him unfold in the same way, based more on the decisions you make in the current playthrough than on those made earlier in the Life is Strange series.
