Highlights
- Since Life Is Strange: Double Exposure was announced, people have been calling for Chloe Price to make a return to the series alongside returning protagonist Max Caulfield, and I don't want that at all.
- I never liked Chloe. She was endlessly selfish and threw Max under the bus for her own gain, and I didn't feel bad about sacrificing her to save Arcadia Bay. She wasn't a good friend, and she wouldn't have been a good girlfriend either.
- I've cut countless bad people out of my life, and I hate to think that after so many years, Max's life could still be revolving around Chloe, a girl who didn't treat her well and felt ownership over her because they were besties as children. I want Max to be more than her relationship with Chloe.
I’ve always felt a little guilty about the way I played the first instalment of the Life Is Strange series, and I’ve been thinking about it even more since Life Is Strange: Double Exposure’s announcement. Specifically, I’m guilty about my choice to sacrifice Chloe in order to save Arcadia Bay. I understood that the game wanted me to love Chloe enough that this decision felt impossible, and there were moments in which I felt a protective instinct towards her.
I don’t feel guilty because I made the wrong choice. Why let a storm kill a whole town of innocent people to save one girl, even if she was my friend? The utilitarian moral good is obviously to save the town, especially since it was me trying to save her that put them in danger in the first place. My guilt actually stems from the fact that not a lot of games at that time let me be obviously queer, and I picked Warren over Chloe.
Fake Bisexual Alert!
I know, it sounds bad. I’m squandering my opportunities to be gay in games! Here’s the thing: Chloe wouldn’t have made a good girlfriend. She didn’t even make a good friend, really. She was selfish as hell, threw Max under the bus in order to protect herself from the consequences of her actions, tried to steal from the handicapped students fund, and got mad at Max for answering a call from a friend that wasn’t her… it goes on.
I get that she was struggling with the disappearance of her best friend, and felt abandoned by everybody in her life. Maybe I’m too ruthless about ending relationships that don’t work for me, but I generally don’t find myself attracted to people who treat me badly.
Related
I Have Mixed Feelings About Max Being Brought Back For Life Is Strange: Double Exposure
Don’t Nod’s first protagonist is coming back for Double Exposure, but maybe she should have been left in Arcadia Bay.
Warren, though, didn’t treat Max badly. He was smart, gentle, and sensitive, defending Max from Nathan even though he’s a nerd who doesn’t really know how to fight. Sure, he gets a little bitter when she rejects him, but he also has enough self-awareness to feel guilty about inflicting violence on Max’s behalf, self-defence or not. Do I feel like a bad gay for picking the dude? Yeah, but he’s actually nice to me, and bisexual does mean men are included. Those things feel important, don’t they?
Will Chloe Price Be Back In Double Exposure?
The moment fans saw Max Caulfield return to the series – which is unprecedented, by the way, as the series has never had a protagonist appear in another game – they started calling for Chloe to make an appearance. To some extent, I get this. Neither ending has ever been confirmed as canon, and it seems like bringing Max back necessitates having to decide which one really happened, and seeing how the chosen ending affected Max’s life.
Perhaps both endings are true in different timelines, and we’ll see Max jump between both of them. Maybe Chloe’s survival is the reason her friend Safi is now dead, because Chloe murdered Safi in a jealous rage. Who knows? At this point, we can only guess.
But why does Chloe have to make an appearance at all? Max is all grown up, with new friends and, seemingly, a new life. I’d hope that whatever happened, Max’s life isn’t still revolving around the best friend she had when she was a teenager, and that she’s grown outside of that relationship with a girl who didn’t treat her as well as she deserved. It would be narratively interesting to see how different versions of Max turned out depending on their choices, but I’m just not that interested in another story that makes Chloe the centre of Max’s world. Being an adult means growing past the stuff that didn’t serve you when you were a kid.
Really, Chloe coming back in a major role would be for the fans, which gives me icky fan service vibes. Then again, Max coming back as a protagonist is also very fan-servicey, so maybe it’s pointless to even be thinking about this.
Maybe it’s all fan service, but it’ll be well-written and satisfying and everyone will walk away happy. It’s too early to say. But I know I don’t want another Chloe story. Even though she’s clearly repeating her teenage mistakes by meddling with time, I want Max to grow up in a meaningful way. Going back to the past, over and over, won’t do that for her.
