Life Is Strange: True Colors

Life Is Strange: True Colors is a graphic adventure played from a third-person view. The player controls the protagonist, Alex Chen, to explore various locations in the fictional setting of Haven Springs and communicate with non-playable characters through the conversation system based on dialogue trees. Alex has psychic empathy powers that allow her to read and manipulate emotions, which she perceives as colorful auras, to physically see how others feel around her at the cost of being "infected" by their emotions. Some of the non-player characters will have more intense auras indicating trauma or hardship they may be going through. When Alex interacts with them, this creates a "nova" that appears to transform the world around Alex and the character to reflect elements of this trauma, giving the opportunity for the player to figure out what caused their emotions and to opt to guide Alex in helping to comfort the character. ==Plot==

In April 2019, Alexandra "Alex" Chen (Erika Mori) leaves a foster care group home after eight years to reunite with her brother Gabriel "Gabe" Chen (Han Soto) in Haven Springs, Colorado. Gabe shows Alex around Haven, with the townspeople primarily employed by a mining company, Typhon. Subsequently, Alex meets park ranger Ryan Lucan (Eric Emery), radio DJ Stephanie "Steph" Gingrich (Katy Bentz, reprising her role from Before the Storm), local bar owner and Ryan's father Jedediah "Jed" Lucan, flower shop owner Eleanor Lethe, her granddaughter Riley, Gabe's girlfriend Charlotte Harmon and her son Ethan, the town's sheriff deputy Jason Pike, taxidermist Reginald "Duckie" McCalister III, Typhon Mining's mine safety manager Mac Loudon, and Typhon's operations director Diane Jacobs. While Gabe shows Alex his apartment and offers it as a gift to her, they get interrupted by Mac, who wrongfully believes Gabe is having an affair with his girlfriend Riley and attacks him. The altercation causes Alex's "emotions" to snap, resulting in her beating up Mac to defend Gabe. Later, Ryan informs them that Ethan has gone missing. The three search the forest for Ethan, and Gabe calls Typhon to cancel a scheduled blast in the nearby mountain. Alex rescues Ethan, but the blast goes off anyway, and a resulting landslide knocks Gabe into a canyon, plummeting to his death. Attempting to find answers about the circumstances around Gabe's death, Alex uses her powers on Mac, who was working the night of the explosion and claims not to have received Gabe's call. She discovers that Mac attempted to act on the call, but his superiors at Typhon overruled and let the blast go off; Typhon is now actively covering up their role in Gabe's death and pressuring him to keep quiet. After enlisting the aid of Ryan and Steph, Alex turns her attention to Diane and steals her USB drive, which contains a recording of Gabe's call and a message from Diane's superior coercing her to ignore the situation and proceed as planned. Alex is later arrested by Pike for theft and computer fraud but is released after either signing an affidavit to drop her investigation or removing Pike's fear of Typhon with her powers. Jed takes Alex to an abandoned mineshaft and confesses that twelve years ago, he was at fault for the deaths of several miners he oversaw as a foreman, which caused him to make a deal with Typhon to cover up the tragedy to protect himself and his family. He shoots at Alex (although the gunshot narrowly misses), causing her to fall into the shaft. Alex survives the fall, badly injured. She experiences flashbacks of her childhood showing her mother's death from cancer, her father's abandonment, and her time in foster care. Searching for a way out, she finds the site where the miners died and discovers her childhood necklace, realizing her father was one of the men killed in the accident. Escaping the mine, Alex barges into the town council meeting and reveals Jed's role in both the mining disaster and Gabe's death, and Typhon's attempts to cover it up, while Jed and Diane attempt to discredit her. After Steph, Charlotte, Duckie, Eleanor, Pike, and Ryan either support or side against Alex based on her past choices, Alex uses her powers on Jed, resulting in Jed seeing the truth of his actions and confessing to the police, ending Typhon's operations. Following these events, Alex visualizes a conversation with a vision of Gabe and ultimately decides whether to remain in Haven Springs or leave to seek adventure as a musician, either alone or alongside Ryan or Steph. Wavelengths In March 2018, Steph gets a job as the DJ host of Haven Springs' KRCT radio station after having lied about her work experience and manages the record store that contains the broadcasting room. She stays in Haven after breaking up with her bandmate Izzie from Seattle, where she moved shortly after the events of the first Life Is Strange game, and is forced to take the job after losing a foosball game to Gabe, preventing her from moving to Denver as she originally planned. Over a year's time, Steph modernizes the radio program and record store and uses her time to search for a date and play a tabletop game with her former best friend Mikey North (Dillon Winfrey, also reprising his role from Before the Storm). If Chloe Price was sacrificed in the first game, Steph mourns Chloe's and Rachel Amber's death; if Arcadia Bay was sacrificed, Steph mourns her mother and Mikey's brother Drew's death due to the storm; both endings culminate in her lashing out at Mikey on the fifth anniversary of the tumultuous events. When Mikey professes how he needs her in his life as his best friend, Steph then apologizes and admits that she stops people from getting close because she is too traumatized from all the past pain. She admits she needs Mikey too and vows to become a better friend to him. On New Year's Eve, she searches for a new job as a DJ back in Seattle, follows her friends' scavenger hunt, and is asked by Gabe about contacting his sister Alex. In April 2019, Steph sees Alex arrive in the record store (as seen in the main game). == Development ==

Deck Nine, which had previously developed the first game's prequel Before the Storm, began work on True Colors in 2017. The development team were certain of the general theme they wanted to explore, which is empathy, before they had settled on a main character or even a story for the game. With the announcement of True Colors, Eurogamer observed that Dontnod's time with the franchise was over and that the Life Is Strange series have been passed to Deck Nine. On 11 August, the downloadable content (DLC) prequel story Wavelengths was announced to be released on 30 September, alongside a delay of the Remastered Collection to early 2022. The next day, the Switch version was said to be delayed to later in 2021. A common theme of the Life Is Strange series has been based on characters with a type of super-human ability, though not like superheroes, that the developers can then provide "meditations on real experiences that regular people go through", according to Felice Kuan, senior writer at Deck Nine. For True Colors, they had determined early on they wanted their protagonist to be based on a power of empathy, not only to be able to sense what others were experiencing but to be vulnerable herself and would be able to grow past this as the story progressed, "giving her a path to greater self-acceptance and greater trust in her own abilities" according to Kuan. On 20 August 2021, the game's original soundtrack was revealed to be composed by Australian duo Angus & Julia Stone. A crowd vote extension for Twitch was released for the game's before launch. On 5 September, a partnership with Critical Role was announced for Wavelengths with references to the webseries' tabletop RPG merchandise. On 29 September, Square Enix started a fundraiser for LGBT organisation OutRight Action International, with anyone donating at least $2 being entered into a draw to win a jacket designed by mxmtoon. On 5 October 2021, the game was updated to include a High Performance mode in addition to the High Resolution mode on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. The latter mode will allow the game to perform at 60 frames per second (fps). Music In addition to the soundtrack by Angus & Julia Stone, Novo Amor composed the song "Haven", used as a theme in the game and the official trailer. The game contains covers of Radiohead's "Creep" and Violent Femmes' "Blister in the Sun" by mxmtoon, who provided Alex's singing voice. mxmtoon also created an original song called "in the darkness", and performed the song "every wave" written by the developers. Other featured artists include Phoebe Bridgers and Gabrielle Aplin. Pond, Girl in Red, Alt-J, Portugal. The Man, Foals, Kings of Leon, Hayley Kiyoko, and Maribou State contributed to Wavelengths with their music. mxmtoon released an extended play of songs for the game on 6 September 2021. At the 2021 ARIA Music Awards, the album won Best Original Soundtrack. At the AIR Awards of 2022, the album was nominated for Best Independent Blues and Roots Album or EP. It peaked at #16 in the Australian Albums ARIA charts in 2021. == Release ==

True Colors was released on 10 September 2021 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, Google Stadia, and was released digitally on 7 December 2021 for the Nintendo Switch. A physical retail Switch version was released for 25 February 2022. Unlike previous mainline games in the series which have had an episodic release schedule, the game was released in its entirety at once. The game is structured in five chapters so that the player may experience the game in smaller segments. The Wavelengths DLC starring Steph was released exclusively as part of the Deluxe Edition on 30 September. A digital Ultimate Edition bundle, with access to the Life Is Strange Remastered Collection, was also available. ==Reception==

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