DLCLife is Strange: Before the Storm DLC - Deluxe UpgradeLoading store offers
Life is Strange: Before the Storm
Life is Strange: Before the Storm follows Chloe's friendship with Rachel and lets your decisions shape the story. It is a natural fit if you want a single-player adventure centered on characters and narrative. At 
GOG, Life is Strange: Before the Storm costs ≈ $8.67. Steam players rate it 93%% positive across 33,520 reviews, which offers one more point of context when weighing the purchase, alongside whether this kind of story-led game suits your tastes. At $16.99 from GOG, weigh the current price against a character-led, choice-driven single-player adventure.
All-time low ~ $2.79across Steam & third-party stores
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Price History
Past 36 months · Updated dailyHistorical Low~ $3.392026-06Current Low Across Stores~ $16.99GOGvs. Historical Low+401%
Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.
DLC
01About Life is Strange: Before the Storm
Life is Strange: Before the Storm is a three-part standalone narrative adventure set three years before the first game. Play as sixteen-year-old Chloe Price as she forms an unlikely friendship with Rachel Amber. Choices shape the story and its multiple possible endings, while Backtalk lets Chloe use risky, sharp-tongued conversation to provoke others or get her way. Steam players rate the game 93%% positive across 33,520 reviews. The Steam PC version has full controller support.
Credits
Composer
Daughter
Developer
Deck Nine · Feral Interactive (Mac) · Feral Interactive (Linux)
Publisher
Square Enix · Feral Interactive (Mac) · Feral Interactive (Linux)
Lowest recorded in 36 months
$3.392026-06-17 · GOGBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.Language support
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | Yes | Yes | — |
| English | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| French | Yes | Yes | — |
Show 4 more languages
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Italian | Yes | Yes | — |
| German | Yes | Yes | — |
| Spanish | Yes | Yes | — |
| Portuguese-Brazil | Yes | Yes | — |
Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-19
02Before you buy
Play style
The Steam PC version is a single-player game with full controller support.
Language
Interface and subtitle languages include English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese and Simplified Chinese. English full audio is available.
03Frequently asked questions
What is the story about?
You play Chloe Price as she forms an unlikely friendship with Rachel Amber, three years before the first game.
Do choices affect the story?
Yes. Your choices shape the narrative, which has multiple possible endings.
What is Backtalk?
Backtalk is a risk-and-reward conversation mode in which Chloe can provoke someone or try to get her way.
Popular Steam reviews
Native-language selection · 10 reviewsSelected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.
RecommendedSteam player
Prequel to Life is Strange from 2015 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2379941061 Developer Deck Nine Games (founded 1997 under Idol Minds, Pain 2007 PS3, PS4) You have 3 Episodes + 1 Bonus (Farewell if you bought Deluxe Version) https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2381302299 Episode 1 Awaking is showing the beginning of Chloe & Rachel Start of Adventures that Ends in a Catastrophe https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2379940285 Episode 2 is even better. The Tempest is if you make it right, really amazing. Sadly they dont go to an Aftershow Party first to have a bit Contact with other Students Episode 3 is Final Decession is really hard Choice Bonus Chapter is short but nice & really very sad (poor Chloe) Really very good Game +++ Rachel & Chloe Story +++ Leveldesign +++ easy 100 % Steam Achievements + 7 Trading Card Set (5 would be perfect) -- could have more Sidestorys, more Samantha Myers, no Brooke Scott ingame (open world or own choice travel would be good) Must Played Games like Original Hope they bring all this amazing Characters back. I want a Game with Rachel Chloe Max Brook Samantha & all the other amazing Girls of this School fighting vs the evil GuysShow moreShow less
14.8 hours at review1,011 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
This is probably the most thorough review I'll ever write on Steam, so I want to say some things before I start: I'm only reviewing the first episode in its release state. I don't know yet if I'm going to update. I'm going to refer to the original game as LiS, to this one as BfS. LiS was a great game. People are hyped and give BfS 10/10 ratings, disregarding its obvious flaws. I would give it neither a thumb up nor a thumb down, but a "meh" rating. BfS isn't developed by the same studio and you notice that extremely. My review will get lots of thumbs down because the review system is broken. Giving a thumb down means telling that the review isn't helpful. People abuse the thumbs to vote down everything that doesn't agree with their opinion while voting up single sentence reviews that don't help anyone. I'll try to keep spoilers out of my review as much as possible. Let's take a look at some negative aspects, starting with technical stuff and proceeding into more "relevant" things: - Graphics While LiS was based on the Unreal Engine, BfS uses the Unity Engine. Believe it or not, but the simple graphics are a lot worse. I actually loved the art style of LiS, but in BfS I actually deleted every single screenshot I took (and I take a lot of screenshots) because they just weren't pleasant to look at. Textures often completely lack detail, anti-aliasing is non-existent (even on maxed out AA settings) which is actually a huge problem in this game, even though I usually don't care much about AA. All my screenshots were heavily pixelated. - Controls Remember how you chose an action in LiS by holding the left mouse button and moving the mouse into the direction of the action? In BfS, you hold the left mouse button and use WASD to choose. In other words, in order to look at stuff or interact you need two hands now instead of only one. It's not a big deal, it just makes the game less comfortable at many scenes. - Voices You've probably heard already that Chloe has a new voice. You probably still have her accent from LiS inside your head. That's gone. Not a big deal, you could get used to that - the problem is that her new actress just isn't good. At some points she sounds completely unmotivated and just talks her text down without any motivation at all. Near the end of the game you will also notice heavy breathing and hear clearly that she was standing to close at the microphone. Chloe isn't the only character with a new voice, for example the famous angry David Madsen sounds really soft now. - Animations Lots of animations look really clunky and unnatural. I wanted to call an exorcist when Rachel was turning her head. In dialogues, characters often lack facial expressions. David gets angry and raises his voice, but his soft and calm expression stays. Until BfS I never noticed what a killer missing facial expressions can be. - Paradoxes and other minor flaws For example, there's a photo of pirate Chloe and pirate Max hanging in Chloe's living room. However, the Max with the eyepatch on the photo isn't the young Max we know from flashbacks, but the old Max you play as in LiS. In Chloe's diary entry about a schoolmate she writes something such as "He's exactly like my class schedule. We have history, but no chemistry." You can read this while following the task "Go to your chemistry class." The game is full of those details. - Chloe's character Alright, Chloe's a rebel. But sometimes it's just too much. In the beginning of the game you can look at a knife stuck inside a wooden wall and Chloe says something like "This looks exactly like the knife my mom didn't want to buy me for my birthday." She also likes tossing items just to the ground after using them, even if she borrowed them from a friend few seconds ago. I mean, come on... - Dialogues Some dialogues actually make me cringe. I won't go into details here due to possible spoilers. There's a new feature which enables you to argue with people. Everytime you have to persuade someone, just look out for the "arguing" sign and you know that's the way to go. It triggers a minigame like in Monkey Island, where your enemy delivers a statement and you have to counter with a fitting insult. Despite the fact that everyone beyond twelve years of age knows that you basically lose an argument as soon as you just start insulting your opponent, the arguing dialogues are just the worst in the game. They are just completely incoherent. You answer to a statement and suddenly your opponent starts about a completely different matter. After winning the minigame, it always seems to me like people stop arguing because they are annoyed by Chloes inability to argue, not because she "won". But of course Chloe had to be as rebel as possible and so it works in the game's context. Furthermore, the reactions and answers of characters sometimes don't seem logical at all. - Other characters Except for Chloe and Rachel, the characters in this game mostly completely lack depth. You meet them, they start talking about a topic, you choose one or two answers, you go on with the game. I don't even remember what we talked about. I didn't like Rachel at all until the ending of the episode, but that's just my personal opinion. - Exploration Remember how you strolled around in LiS, trying to find out everything about the world and its inhabitants? Trying to find motives for a good photo? It's almost non-existent in BfS. Chloe's a rebel and there's a stage play coming up at school. Everything you'll find are some posters about drug abuse and the upcoming stage play, without giving you any more information. Instead of taking photos, you can draw graffitis at walls now. There's a graffiti in every scene, so you just walk along walls until you find the spot to get your achievement. Now, some more positive aspects: + Clothes After the intro you have to change clothes. You can choose the outfit you want to wear during the episode. There are two different T-shirts in the base game, you unlock three more outfits if you buy the deluxe edition and you can play as classic Chloe (without blue hair) if you preordered the game. - I probably don't have to mention that this feature is just a huge cashgrab for Square Enix. It's a neat feature anyway. + Soundtrack Just like LiS, BfS has a nice indie rock soundtrack which fits well into the game. - Remember the scenes in LiS, where you just enjoyed the scenery and a nice song to it? They are in BfS too, but somehow they don't seem to fit into the game or they were just executed half-heartedly. They are nice to have anyway. + Gameplay Well, the gameplay won't surprise you. If you liked the gameplay of LiS and can live without time travel puzzles, you'll be satisfied. + New ideas After the cool intro and the unfortunately very tedious middle part, the developers suddenly had their own ideas in the end and this is where the game finally shine. This might be a little spoiler, but there's a difference between Max and Chloe. While Max was very calm, Chloe can become very angry. At some part in the game it suddenly gets emotional, and instead of only showing Chloe's emotions, you actually get to live out Chloe's emotions. And it feels great. The arguing minigame is actually quite exciting, despite it's obvious lack of logic. For each graffiti, you can choose between two different messages which will also show up in your graffiti diary. Neat little gimmick. + The ending Just like every LiS episode, episode 1 of BfS has a great ending. It didn't only leave me sitting with my mouth open, it actually sent a chill down my spine. Conclusion: If it wasn't for the first 20 minutes and especially the last 20 minutes of the episode (3.5 hours in total), I would actually give the game a clear thumb down. I give it a "meh" rating. It has very obvious flaws, but it's quite enjoyable if you're a LiS fan.Show moreShow less
3.6 hours at review1,504 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
The saddest part is to wait the next episode.Show moreShow less
5.6 hours at review710 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Life is Strange: Before the Storm - Review Life is Strange was some of the games I liked most in 2015. Needless to say, I was excited to see that a prequel was being developped - I mean, more LiS is always a good thing, or so I thought. I played it first at Gamescom 2017 and the impression was decent, I found things to enjoy and was looking forward to what the game had to tell. The game had been out for quite some time. Well. Can't say I recommend it, to anyone, really. I truly can't understand why people find enjoyment in it. Because to be, this was pretty much Hell. Life is Ugly Quickly glancing over the screenshots on the store page might lead you to believe that the Unity Engine holds quite well to the first game's standard. Well, it does, but only from far away. Textures are mostly blurry and made of colours bleeding into one another, and the animations are mostly lack-luster, especially facial animations and lip-sync. But far worse are the 3D models, which, for some reasons, are some of the worst I've seen in years. To be short, objects are heavily underdetailed, and a bottle will be made of eigth straight edges rather than a cylinder. This is really disheartening to see, especially since how the original LiS played with light was really immersive, and even this is lost here. To sum up, textures, animations, lighting and models are average at their very best, and the game looks quite ugly and uninteresting. Life is Depressing The voice acting is really strange, since every character speaks slooooowly with a lot of pauses between words and sentences, to the point where many scenes can turn quite boring, especially if you watch someone else play. I guess the actors' direction was that speaking as such creates a slow, depressing atmosphere, but it really just creates a boring one. Life is Stupid Characters are mostly unlikable. Chloe is the same disrespectful brat as we know from LiS - which means that see did not change a bit in the three years seperating the two. Rachel is a toxic, controlling, egotistical self-serving prick who sees the world only through her limited angsty teen eyes, whilst ignoring blatant facts about her own privileges, be it wealth or people who care for her. She pushes everyone away, even Chloe, but also wants all these people to like her. She is quite an awful person. This is not helped by the game taking place over, what, two or three days? Everything goes so fast, and characters don't have the time to be this invested in one another. All the relationships seem rushed. Worse even, the only characters that act like sane human beings are being frowned upon, such as Joyce, who just wants her daughter not to be kicked out of school, and really wants to see her succeed. Life Doesn't Make Any Sense The final nail in the coffin is that none of this matter, or is relevant to the original LiS in the slightest: the story winds up being pretty much useless. None of the questions from the first game that could have been answered with a prequel are adressed, and the whole story goes nowhere. We don't know anything about the relationship between Frank and Rachel. Nor are we informed on the actual nature of Chloe and Rachel's """friendship""". We just know how they met. And how Rachel's mom is not her biological mom, but that serves absolutely zero purpose to the series overall plot. And of course, the team at Deck Nine sometimes cannot be asked to give answers to their own plot elements. For example, there is a wildfire menacing Arcadia Bay - as an echo to LiS' tornado. You would think it matters at all during the game, but no, nothing is done with it... Instead, you have some incredibly dumb deus ex machina: the wildfire that apparently "suddenly stopped", and everything is back to normal without it having even the slightest impact on anyting. Great. Life is Lazy Deck Nine didn't bother to properly introduce the game. Indeed, every settings of this game are known through either the first game, or Chloe's notebook (which, let's be honest, almost noone reads). Basically, Chloe has been abandonned by her friend (Max), is grieving her father, and escapes reality through drugs and general bad behavior. This is literally the same as in the original LiS, where Chloe has been abandonned by her friend (Rachel), is grieving her father, and escapes reality through drugs and general bad behavior. Also, in both, she hates the step-dad, as she does... In any case, since all of this isn't even really well told through the game, you cannot understand Chloe's situation and thus personality, if you didn't play the first game. Was it too much to ask, to just have even a simple voice over at the beginning that said something along the line of "My name is Chloe Price, two years ago my dad died and my best friend left me"? Life is Expensive For the price of the first game, you get only 4 episodes, one of which is not related to the other three. You also get purely cosmetic outfits and a "Jukebox mode" that requires the game to be running as the primary task to even hear the music, even if its in windowed mode. So basically, you cannot just run it and listen to the soundtrack while doing something else, and that's a bummer. Life is Musical At least the soundtrack was good. Loved "Burn it down" by Daugther... But the Jukebox Mode sucks, so even that is not a very strong thing BtS has going for it. Life is Strange, I guess For Life is Strange to have such a disappointing second installment truly baffles me. It just isn't good. The story is useless and badly told, and the characters are simply awful. This isn't helped by the fact that the game doesn't look that good, and its only redeemable quality is its soundtrack. So really, if you were considering buying this game, just buy the OST, you'll be better off. Life is too short to be read This new Life is Strange sucks.Show moreShow less
7.7 hours at review208 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Pros - Everything. Cons - Game doesnt cost enough money. - Throwing money at the screen doesnt bring Episode 3 any sooner. 1. Buy it. 2. Begin to play it. 3. Make poor choices. 4. restart game, change choices 5. Realise new choices are worse. 6. Eventually stumble to the end feeling like you've almost held it together. 7. Make monumentally poor choice. 8. Open the bottle of Jack Daniels you keep by your desk. 9. Begin drunken reflection on reality. 10. Remember why you failed Philosophy. 11. Drink some more. 12. find out this game has set an impossible bar for videogame storytelling. 14. Decide to write negative review of game because it made you feel sad. 15. Change it to positive BECAUSE it managed to make you feel sad. 16. Begin the slightly hollow search for something that can offer a similar experience.Show moreShow less
20.2 hours at review479 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Before The Storm was meant to be Prequel of the First Life is Strange Game. But it didn't felt like. You will never get to know how Rachel got in love with Frank and how she was connected to Mr. Jefferson and it just shows how Chloe and Rachel met and and their relationship and that's it. Also not a single hint how she was or got connected and it felt like an entirely different game and not a Prequel. The Fact that they decided not to include spoilers from the first game was preety dumb :( There are only 3 Episodes in this Game in which only First 2 Episode were really really good and the final Episode felt like they were stretching the episode with slow, extra and unnecrssary dialogues and by slow dialogue I mean really really slow. There were so many pauses after every word they say (But the slow dialogue thing was only in Episode 3) So, if you are buying this game to find the connection from the first game, you will be disappointed :( Edit: Some people replied in comments that there will be a "second season" of Before the Storm. FYI, there will be a "second season" but not of Before the Storm. In fact I will be happy to buy and play it but they (Dontnod) are already working on entire new Life is Strange with new characters and probably new location. So even if you are wishing for part 2 of Before the Storm, it will not happen.Show moreShow less
43.1 hours at review135 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
I love the "Life is Strange" series since the first minute I started to play. This game calms me down from the world, from everything and I can start to relax, think about life and such. It's like I'm out of the world 'til I stop playing the game (and trust me, it's hard to stop for me!) I want to thank the delevopers and the entire team for this masterpieces. I can't say it in words, how much Life is Strange is helping me in my life. Thanks for everything. EDIT: It might not be the best english, but I hope it's readable.Show moreShow less
4.7 hours at review472 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
I'm a huge fan of this game and first 2 Episodes were the masterpieces. But the Ep. 3 is the most disappointing thing in my entire life. How could you do that, Deck Nine?Show moreShow less
21 hours at review101 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Graphics quality: low, medium, high, hella high 10/10 gotyShow moreShow less
2.9 hours at review462 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Despite being produced by a different developer, on its surface Before the Storm can be heralded as a true Life is Strange title, sharing many thematic elements with its predecessor. From the beginning of this prequel’s episodic trilogy, I was greeted with idyllic set pieces and familiar characters. The game’s expressive soundtrack sounded and swelled in the right moments, and though Ashly Burch did not reprise her role as Chloe Price, the voice acting from the entire cast was notably immersive. And yet, something was different during this second jaunt through Arcadia Bay. Some of its magic which had once left me transfixed, had faded, and at the end of this journey I felt more disillusioned than wishing to return. Before the Storm’s most glaring weakness is the absence of the Rewind mechanic which had been central to the gameplay of Life is Strange. At their heart, the promise of both games revolves around the player’s ability to make meaningful decisions, or at the very least, the illusion of doing so. In the original title the reversal of time served as a tool to reinforce this illusion; players were encouraged to explore the immediate and diverse consequences of their actions, often in the form of dialogue options or interacting with objects. Rewind enabled players to methodically investigate the depth of a character’s range of reactions before making a final choice and moving the plot forward. Ultimately, Life is Strange saved its greatest rewards for players willing to understand the world and its characters thoroughly enough to deliberate the long-term ripples their decisions might create. Because of this, the denizens of Arcadia Bay felt increasingly fleshed-out and alive; and the freedom provided to the player, to take a handful of steps down each possible path, was enough to demonstrate the relevance of their agency. It was insignificant that most of the paths crossed and merged just as they curved out of sight. Like all magic, what mattered was the illusion and that we as spectators were enticed enough to accept it. While Before the Storm introduces the enjoyable new dialogue mechanic, Backtalk, it presents no substitute for the utility of the Rewind mechanic in maintaining the illusion of meaningful choice. It is perhaps for this reason that so many decisions in this sequel felt pointless, linear, like being dragged along on a string. Without a means for the player to prove otherwise, it was often as if every dialogue option were essentially the same, as if player input were irrelevant, unwanted, and the story was content enough to continue moving on its own. Compounding the issue is the setting of Before the Storm as a prequel to the original game. Interactions with nearly every returning character felt partially futile and fabricated. Despite the radical changes or growth a character may undergo in Before the Storm, he or she will inevitably become the same flawed person Max interacts with three years later in Life is Strange. This certitude caused many well-known characters to appear either static or ingenuine and, though I thoroughly explored every side-arc of the original title, while playing Before the Storm I found myself avoiding interactions with the main cast altogether. Likewise, because the protagonist of this game, Chloe Price, is herself a nuanced character in Life is Strange, even many of Before the Storm’s most climactic decision points feel disappointingly ineffectual. What is perhaps the game’s strongest narrative moment takes place in the closing scene of the game, after the player has made their final decision. It is a true shame that in a game built around choices, many of the most well-defined and memorable aspects of the story unfold while the player is deprived of control. From a narrative standpoint, Before the Storm struggles occasionally with pacing and cloying plot clichés; it boasts a story and visual style which manage to capture the style of Life is Strange, but not its spirit. The journey through the episodic story is dishearteningly mediocre, marred by contrivances and poor characterization, and irksomely weak in terms of player agency. As someone who was enraptured by the contemplative melancholy of the original game, I was left largely disappointed and would have preferred to experience the contents of this prequel in the pages of a novella or in a similar medium better suited for its linearity and narrative constraints. If developer Deck Nine opts to prolong our venture in Arcadia Bay with a future title, let us hope they are more careful to revitalize the depth, wonder, and soul Dontnod had originally breathed into their world.Show moreShow less
10.4 hours at review78 people found this helpful
Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.