Life Is Strange: Reunion Review – A Strong Ending With a Slow Start

Life Is Strange: Reunion marks a long-awaited return to one of gaming’s most beloved stories. Serving as a direct sequel to both the original Life Is Strange and Life Is Strange: Double Exposure, this new entry carries the weight of over a decade of fan expectations.

With Square Enix and Deck Nine Games framing Reunion as the final chapter for Max Caulfield and Chloe Price, the stakes couldn’t be higher. This isn’t just another sequel. It’s the conclusion to a story players have been emotionally invested in for years. The big question is simple. Does Life Is Strange: Reunion deliver the ending fans have been waiting for, or does it struggle to live up to the legacy that made the series unforgettable? Let’s break it down in The Outerhaven’s full review.

Game Name: Life Is Strange: Reunion
Platform(s): PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC
Reviewed On: PC
Genre: Third-Person Adventure Game
Publisher(s): Square Enix
Developer(s): Deck Nine Games
Release Date: March 26th, 2026

Life Continues On

In Life Is Strange: Reunion, we find Max continuing her life at Caledon University, where she is now teaching. We first find her as she is returning from a photography exhibition, and after stopping for a photo, she receives a call from her friend Moses to tell her that a fire has broken out at the school. This tragedy leads to the death of several students, including Moses. Max, frustrated, then uses a photo to travel back in time, like only she can.

Before this madness unfolds, we actually see that fan favorite Chloe Price is very much alive, which would have been a major surprise had it not been spoiled by the game’s marketing. We find Chloe working as a band manager, but something is definitely wrong. She is having some bizarre visions and sets off to find Max for help.

It’s here that the story of Life Is Strange: Reunion really begins, and while I’ll avoid major spoilers, it would be impossible to talk about the quality of Life Is Strange: Reunion as a game without discussing the story further.

With the initial setup in place, after Max jumps back in time via the photo I mentioned earlier, she quickly sets her sights on trying to figure out what caused the fire and stopping the events from taking place. Life Is Strange: Reunion, narratively, is actually structured like a Sherlock Holmes adventure. You spend lots of time not really knowing anything at all, but slowly piece together the puzzle of this “whodunit” as you reach the game’s dramatic conclusion.

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Full of twists and turns, you’ll find yourself thinking one thing, only to think the complete opposite an hour later. Was it Yasmine who started the fire as a way to get her job back, or perhaps her daughter Safi is back to settle some unfinished business? Perhaps the fire just started as a result of Moses’ faulty kettle. The story is genuinely intriguing throughout and grows even more interesting as you progress through the game.

However, that brings me to my only major gripe with the game; the story pacing for the first few hours is really slow and almost put me off the game entirely. I’m not against a slow burn, but this was to the point where, three hours in, I found myself wondering if the game would ever end. Thankfully, once you start to get to the point where Chloe meets up with Max, things quickly ramp up in a way that resulted in me doing a complete 180 and not wanting to put the game down.

It Brought A Tear To My Eye

There aren’t many games that can bring real emotion out of me, but Life Is Strange: Reunion did just that on more than one occasion. It wouldn’t have been able to accomplish that without two core things: good writing and great performances from the cast.

Hannah Telle returns once again as Max Caulfield and injects so much emotion into every scene. From casual conversations with Moses, to teaching students photography, or even being high, every spoken word feels authentic to not only what Max would say in any given moment, but exactly how she would say it as well. That can only be achieved when both the writers and actor embody the character completely, which they do here.

Alongside Hannah as Max, we have the return of Rhianna DeVries as Chloe Price, who she first played in Life Is Strange: Before the Storm. While some fans may understandably have been hoping for an Ashly Burch return to truly tie everything back to the original game, there is no doubt in my mind that Rhianna DeVries absolutely smashes the part here. She steals scenes with Chloe’s charming wit, while also having a layer of uncertainty in her voice that is completely appropriate given what is happening with her in this story, which I won’t spoil.

I also want to call out a fantastic performance by Olivia AbiAssi, who returns as Safi in a pivotal role once again. However, I’m not even going to discuss her role in the story, as it would involve major spoilers.

Overall, the three actors I mention each put on some of the strongest performances in recent memory, and with the help of the rest of the cast, captured the desired emotions perfectly in every moment.

Familiar Feel But It Works

When it comes to gameplay, Life Is Strange: Reunion doesn’t reinvent the wheel. It instead focuses on what the franchise has always done well. That being choices with consequences and the use of powers to add some spice.

This time, Max isn’t jumping between different timelines. Instead, she is back to focusing on her core ability of rewinding time. While it may not seem like the most original aspect of this game, the familiarity of messing around with time to help you find clues or get information acts as essential glue between this game and the original. More than that, it goes beyond being just glue for the two games and becomes a key component of the narrative between Max, Chloe, and even Safi.

Alongside using Max’s powers, you will, obviously, be making many dialogue choices, which, as always, are done using the face buttons when playing on a controller. There are even sections where you make dialogue choices for both Chloe and Max in the same conversation, which was nice to see and not what I expected.

Speaking of Chloe, gameplay here is slightly different because she doesn’t have powers like Max. However, one thing Chloe can do that Max isn’t able to is intimidate people into giving her information or bluff her way out of situations. This is done through making a series of correct dialogue choices to reach a win state in certain conversations. You’ll know you’re in one of these when you see a blue bar with a series of circles on it. Choosing the correct dialogue will fill a circle for Chloe, but choosing incorrectly will fill a circle for the person she’s speaking to.

What made this more interesting, and added a layer of tension to these moments, was the fact that they are one shot. If you fail, then you miss out on that information, which might be crucial to securing the best possible ending of the game.

There isn’t much to gameplay outside of that, but in these types of games, you don’t really want anything more complex, as it would distract from the story. So, it’s very familiar, but in this case, that is absolutely fine and to be expected.

Good But Doesn’t Stand Out

When it comes to both visuals and audio, Life Is Strange: Reunion is a good-looking and great-sounding game. The quiet moments, with music playing and scenery passing by, are stellar, beautiful, and relaxing.

The problem is that nothing about Life Is Strange: Reunion stands out from a visual or audio standpoint because it feels almost identical to Life Is Strange: Double Exposure, and that isn’t a bad thing. It just lacks anything that feels uniquely its own as a result.

PC Performance Is Fine Outside Of One Reoccurring Issue

PC performance is about what you’d expect from a game of this type. A wide range of hardware should be able to achieve a locked 60fps at various resolutions and settings. For me, the game defaulted to 4K resolution and Ultra settings, and I had zero framerate issues.

Jordan’s PC Specs: AMD 9950X3D, RTX 5090 Founders Edition, 96GB DDR5 6000MHz Corsair RAM

However, I did have one recurring issue that almost completely lost my save. In a cutscene very close to the end of the game, it crashed to desktop with an error. I restarted my machine, replayed this scene, and got the same exact crash. Luckily, through the game’s scene select, I was able to choose that scene and save it as a new save file, which fixed the issue. So if you encounter this issue, at least until it’s patched out, then that is the way to fix it.

A Fitting Final Chapter

Despite a slow start that almost made me stop playing the game, by the end, Life Is Strange: Reunion became a game that I fell in love with. Thanks to strong writing and excellent performances, Life Is Strange: Reunion delivers the perfect final chapter for Max and Chloe that all long-time fans should play.

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If you enjoyed this review, explore more of our in-depth video game reviews across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.

Review Disclosure Statement: A copy of Life Is Strange: Reunion was provided to us for review purposes by Square Enix. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy for more info.