Life Is Strange: True Colors review

Our Verdict

Life Is Strange: True Colors represents the best the franchise has ever been, and provides a perfect jumping-on point for newcomers.

For

Beautiful art way and setting
Exceptional soundtrack
Engaging central gameplay gimmick
Likable characters

Confronting

Some low-res textures in close-ups

Tom's Guide Verdict

Life Is Strange: Truthful Colors represents the best the franchise has ever been, and provides a perfect jumping-on bespeak for newcomers.

Pros

+
Cute art mode and setting
+
Infrequent soundtrack
+
Engaging primal gameplay gimmick
+
Likable characters

Cons

-
Some low-res textures in close-ups

Life Is Strange: True Colors specs

Platforms: PC, PS4 (reviewed), PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Serial X/Due south
Price: $lx
Release Date: September 10, 2021
Genre: Adventure

Life Is Foreign: Truthful Colors is the newest and boldest entry in the beloved franchise from developer Deck Nine. This time effectually, you get all v engrossing chapters in a single, upward-front parcel, rather than staggered, episodic releases. The game tackles themes of family, friendship, trauma and redemption in an enthralling, narrative-driven adventure that asks you lot to make constant choices, which touch on the story and characters within it.

The game'south chief character is an empath with the ability to see and feel the emotions of those around her via colorful auras. The game explores her unusual gift – or curse, equally she oft thinks of it – to its fullest extent. Yous'll have to determine how to solve the problems that inevitably arise from arresting and influencing these emotions – sometimes with devastating results.

As yous'll find out in this Life Is Strange: True Colors review, this isn't just a captivating tale, filled with of import crossroads and interesting characters. Information technology's also a solid stride forward for the Life Is Strange series in terms of production values, bringing the franchise up to the big-budget standards it has long deserved.

Life Is Strange: True Colors review: Story

Life Is Strange: True Colors revolves around protagonist Alex Chen. Subsequently spending her troubled teen years in foster care, she reconnects with her brother Gabe for the first fourth dimension in almost a decade. Though their shared traumatic childhoods left both siblings shattered, Gabe has since fabricated a good life for himself equally a functional adult in the quaint mining boondocks of Haven Springs, Colorado. As the story begins, he's invited Alex to come up live with him in his apartment above the bar where he works.

Surrounded by the snow-capped Rocky Mountains, Haven Springs is a pastoral place with rustic architecture and laid-back townsfolk. Information technology's the type of spot that Alex, every bit an introvert with a city punk vibe, initially finds a bit foreign. Only as Gabe introduces her to the lovable residents, she finds herself intrigued past the thought of a fresh beginning in a place that feels far removed from her previous life.

Unfortunately, Alex'due south superpower of extreme empathy, which lets her encounter and feel other people's emotions, is always getting in her way. Considering she'due south unable to control the extent to which these emotions affect her, she rapidly finds herself overwhelmed by the solar day-to-24-hour interval problems of her new associates. And, only as she's trying to grapple all that, she's blindsided by a traumatic decease, and forced to deal with survivor's guilt.

Though Alex's integration into normal life isn't a smooth ride, her story isn't all doom and gloom. That's largely thanks to a bandage of mannerly characters, who chop-chop become an integral part of her life. She's surrounded by welcoming citizens, just it'south Gabe'southward best friend, Ryan, and the local radio DJ, Steph, who form the backbone of Alex's budding social circle. They also act as two potential love interests.

Nevertheless, even when these pals help Alex express mirth and bask her new life, she however has to find time to manage her own life, plan customs events and unravel a mystery that may lead to shocking revelations about Haven Springs' past. This unsettling path to the truth forces Alex to confront complex ethical dilemmas, which lead us to question our ain moral frameworks, and determine what kind of person we want Alex to be.

Life Is Strange: Truthful Colors review: Gameplay

Life Is Foreign: True Colors divides its time between chat and exploration. Sometimes, y'all'll play through dialogue-heavy story sequences, which crave y'all to make choices that affect how the plot unfolds. Other times, you'll play through third-person sections that let y'all walk around a location, talk to people and inspect items for exposition. If y'all're here for action, you'll find very picayune, but the game engineers its own form of excitement.

The constant onslaught of everyone else's feelings tin can go out Alex feeling resentful of her power. Nonetheless, she also acknowledges that her empathy can exist a valuable resource. Many pivotal junctures in the game accept you blot some other character's emotions and later visualize their thoughts. This lets you gain valuable insights into their past and present. Later on, you'll usually go a fresh batch of discussion topics or actions to pursue.

You may decide whether you should deepen or break a friendship, whether y'all should courtroom Ryan or Steph, or whether to absorb someone else's negative emotions at the risk of your own mental health. But at that place are besides enough of optional objectives that tin can touch on the story and characters on a smaller calibration, besides. These might include giving an insecure jogger a pep talk, assisting a human being with finding his lost dog or only deciding whether or non to clean up your messy flat.

Most capacity let you explore with Alex to meet the full breadth of what Haven Springs has to offer – and at that place's quite a bit to see. You tin do things like peruse the local record store, visit folks at the bar, relax on the dock by the lake or play retro-style mini-games on the arcade machines scattered about. If you want to soak in everything, you can examine the hundreds of interactive objects that range from trivial stuff (concert flyers, sentimental knick-knacks, wall murals) to noteworthy points of interest, or revealing documents that yield further knowledge nearly the town's history and residents.

While you're at it, you tin can too circular up collectibles in the class of items with auras. Each object contains a retentiveness of someone who was attached to it. A few items are well-hidden and can be a petty tricky to notice, which is yet another incentive to thoroughly search open areas. However, a post-game chapter select makes it easy to clean these upward, and so missing a couple of collectibles during your outset playthrough isn't that big of a deal.

Life Is Strange: True Colors review: Visuals and sound

The Life Is Strange series has needed a facelift for quite a while. Every bit such, it'south cracking to see Truthful Colors implement extensive refinements without sacrificing the franchise'due south signature art management. While occasional low-res textures on wearable and surfaces wait like they belong four generations back, Truthful Colors has a prettier and more realistic iteration of the series' trademark watercolor-meets-clay artful. This finally lets the world and characters in Life Is Strange reach their total potential.

Movement capture and facial capture, in particular, are much better this time effectually effectually. These ensure that character movement is considerably less potent, and that facial animations highlight the actors' distinct mannerisms. When you lot combine this with desperate improvements to the writing and conceivable performances from an exceptionally talented bandage, it's difficult non to get engrossed in True Colors.

Meanwhile, Haven Springs is only gorgeous, with something to see at every turn. Whether you're admiring the lush vegetation just beneath a snowfall-capped mountain, pensively gazing out over a crystal-clear lake, or just making your style through a town square lined with flowers, this piddling piece of Colorado sky is as marvelous to look at as it is to explore.

True Colors is teeming with phenomenal music, too. Nil here is quite every bit memorable as the original game'south dreamlike "Something Good," or Life Is Strange 2's upbeat anthem "Lisztomania." But Truthful Colors nonetheless sounds impressive, with a passionate original score from Angus & Julia Stone.

The Stone duo's collection of upbeat indie jams and folksy acoustic pieces experience right at habitation in the Life Is Foreign universe. At that place are also some killer tracks from artists like Phoebe Bridgers and Novo Amor, equally well equally a handful of splendid covers. Nearly remarkable, though, is the style that each song plays at the perfect moment in the story. It reminds usa that music can exist merely as vital to storytelling equally graphics and dialogue – perhaps fifty-fifty more so.

Life Is Strange: True Colors review: Verdict

Life Is Strange: Truthful Colors tells a riveting tale of tragedy, moral ambivalence and personal growth, offer you tons of choices equally you shape the twisting path to one of its multiple endings. Simply more anything else, True Colors is exactly what the franchise needs: a more than cohesive journeying, with major improvements to visuals, blitheness, and vocalization piece of work. At concluding, Life Is Strange feels similar a big-budget experience from beginning to terminate.

Billy Givens is a journalist with well-nigh two decades of experience in editing and writing beyond a wide variety of topics. He focuses specially on games coverage for Tom's Guide and other sites including From Gamers Mag, Retroware, Game Rant and TechRaptor. He'due south as well written for self-improvement sites such every bit Lifehack and produced in-depth analyses on subjects such as health, psychology and amusement.