#ty2016

What are the chances to create such an emotional, life changing rollercoaster on purpose? Since you won’t have a million monkeys working on a million typewriters, your talent must be really incredible and adorable!

However, after my first playthrough (btw, I’m 44, male) I cursed you. I was literally destroyed. I haven’t cried, I never do, but you pulled out emotions I locked away 20-30 years ago and forgot them. I was happy with that, that’s what I wanted. Live in peace. Then you come around the corner and blow up my safe. I couldn’t almost handle the emotions and was about to go mad. Literally. I really wasn’t sure if I’d find the way back to normal. I needed some medicational help and after 6 weeks, I could start praising you and the game. It’s 9 weeks now since I finished and the game really changed the way I see other people. No therapy I ever had (and that were some), had that kind of impact to me. My first lesson was: You can talk to other people without having a reason! Sounds silly, but I never questioned that. There was always a reason. And to experience it kinda shocked me. I started the game running around for the mission to accomplish, ignoring all the people that weren’t supposed to help me, apparently. But then I was wondering why you have the possibility to talk to them. And I tried. And… it works! No reason, no idea of what to talk about, and you even get information you never thought of! I tried that in the real world and it works, too! Man, what is going on?

Another life changer came with the 2nd playthrough. In the first one, when Victoria and her minions were on the stairs to the dorm, I was full of revenge and enjoyed it very much to make fun of Victoria. In the 2nd playthrough, I was just curious and wanted to see the other outcome, just to see something new. But then I saw Victorias change. And it clicked a 2nd time in my head.

Of course, I’m also heavily influenced by all the other “usual” stuff, can’t stop thinking about it (man, I’m so in love with it! Of course I can’t!), the story is phenomenal, the graphics art is awesome, the voice actors so adorable, especially Hannah is so touching, the whole atmosphere is breathtaking and so on. You hear that enough from other fans, so I stop here.

Thank you all for creating this masterpiece of art!

I just want to say a massive thanks for producing what is my most memorable game in over 30 years of playing computer games.

The game is stunning on so many levels. The storytelling, amazing voices, beautiful artwork & music are all part of the experience that drew me into Arcadia Bay and made me feel part of the lives of the people there.

You proved that computer games can be a serious storytelling medium, an achievement I think you should never underestimate.

All of that came together to have a massive emotional impact on me and I really thank you so much for that - it made me care about the characters in Life is Strange like I have never done before in any other game.

To all of you: writers, voices, producers, programmers, musicians, sound engineers, techs, project co-ordinators, legal, assistants, office managers and.. everyone.. you are all amazeballs and every single one of you should be immensely proud for making Life is Strange possible.

Know that you created something amazing, something I will remember forever, and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for creating this masterpiece.

Oh and a hella special thanks for releasing LiS on Linux!

Thank you again,

Hello everyone at DONTNOD studios, I would like to offer my deepest gratitudes for creating the experience called Life Is Strange. I’m 28 years old male from Finland and I’ve been a gamer for over 20 years, I’ve played many kind of games, seen many kind of movies. I love those stories the most, that can make me cry because such moments I remember for many years to come. I never expected to find a game after so many years, that would touch my heart and soul so deeply like Life Is Strange…

It was a cold Christmas holiday night when I was thinking of getting a new game and LIS caught my interest. It didn’t take me long to notice how special it felt and I finished it in the last day of 2015. After finishing it, instead of going to shoot fireworks with others to celebrate change of year, I stayed home crying and thinking about what a special journey this was. The story totally surprised me, it pulled me into such an realistic and immersive world and made me cry more than anything else before in my life, which truly shows what an amazing accomplishment you all did.

Characters like Max and Chloe are the best I have ever seen and… I can relate to them so much. Especially to Max, because I have always been a shy person like her, I love them so much. I grew so attached to them, my past experiences in life were somewhat similar so it made the emotional impact even more bigger. Like school bullying, separation from friends so it was a trip down the memory lane too. I’m forever thankful for this game, or no…it’s actually more than a game, because it is a life changing experience.

Thank you so much Michel Koch, Raoul Barbet, Luc Baghadoust, Christian Devine, Jean-Luc Cano from DONTNOD for everything, you managed to do something that no other developer have managed to do before. For creating such a mindblowing game with hella feels and tears. Thank you Hannah Telle and Ashly Burch for bringing my most favorite characters ever alive in an incredible and touching way, your performance left me speechless many times. Also thank you Nik Shriner, Dayeanne Hutton, Derek Phillips, Cissy Jones, Daniel Bonjour, Joe Ochman, Don McManus and many others for the amazing work and performance. You all brought this to life in such beautiful way. Thank you Syd Matters, Jonathan Morali and every other artist that shared the music, which brought me so many feelings. To the rest of the LIS crew, thank you very much.

I finished LIS almost 9 months ago and still think about it every single day, listen the beautiful music every single day and still play it. I had to play Remember Me after LIS, which is an amazing game also and you are my favorite developers now.  Honestly LIS changed my life, it made me think about life and what matters. It effected me so much, that I started again my drawing hobby from many years ago and I’m so happy for this and also made me read quite a lot. It made me discover some of the best friends and communities I’ve ever had from all around the world. The amazing thing of this is also, that they all share similar experiences and love LIS. I really do love these people from the fan community, especially from www.lifeisstrangefans.com . Every day feels amazing and fun when I visit there. I’ve always been a polite and kind person, but I believe that playing LIS  can change people to become better, care for others and that it can make the World a better place. It’s hard to describe just how much LIS means to me…

I love you all and wish the very best things to come for you!

This is a celebration and thank you video, I did on my first anniversary of “Life is Strange”.

First and foremost, I just want to thank you all for making this amazing game, though I have a hard time to call it a just game, it’s more of an experience. A piece of art fits better in my opinion. 

I’ve always been rather introverted and shy myself. Playing video games in my free time made me escape the real world and feel like I’m some sort of super hero, at least in most of the games I played prior to Life is Strange. In hindsight this sounds rather pathetic to me. 

My favorite games are those, which are story-heavy and have great plots and characters. Almost by accident I found out about a little gem called Life is Strange. To be honest, I didn’t expect much of it and bought the first episode on a whim during the steam winter sale just to try it out and see what the hype is about. After falling in love with it, I immediately purchased the season pass to continue. Playing the game during Christmas was kind of a bad idea and made for rather sad holidays. I haven’t cried in years, but choosing to sacrifice our precious punk in the ending broke me and had me bawling afterwards. I then rewound the game to rectify my decision by saving Chloe (Bae > Bay). When I found out that a Limited Edition with the soundtrack CD and an art book was going to be released, I preordered it at once, something I usually never do, because I somehow felt like I ripped you off buying this amazing game for such a low price.

One of the main reasons Life is Strange resonated so strong with me are the characters and their development throughout the journey. Never have I ever encountered a game with characters that are written so real to life and so relatable. Huge respect to Jean-Luc and Xtian DaVin (yeah, I found you at the gallery!) for achieving this hella hard, yet apparently not impossible task. It’s also amazing how you tackled all the difficult topics in the game like suicide, bullying and euthanasia in such a respectful manner. 

As an introverted person, I immediately connected with Max like I never did with any other character I played as before. Seeing Hannah portraying her in a way that seemed so natural made it all the more easy for me. I just can’t imagine Max (or any other character in the game for that matter) being voiced by anyone else. Over the course of the five episodes we see Max growing in confidence from her shy self to her being “Super Max” and playing through Life is Strange and experiencing Max’s growth certainly boosted my confidence in a similar way. Now that I don’t need to play video games anymore to feel better and confident in myself, I have more time to practice on my acoustic guitar, which I bought specifically because of Life is Strange. 

That brings me to my next point, the music in the game. If I told the younger version of myself that I would listen to Indie Folk someday, he would call me crazy. The soundtrack introduced me to so many awesome bands and singers like Syd Matters, Angus and Julia Stone, José González and many more. It’s so crazy how fitting the music is in every scene, you did an amazing job in selecting those pieces there, Spanish Sahara still makes me teary eyed. Jonathan Morali’s OST is really awesome as well and so relaxing, I love to listen to it while studying.

After Life is Strange I just had to try out your first game Remember Me and all the things I loved in Life is Strange like the characters, setting and story were amazing there as well. I’m absolutely looking forward to playing Vampyr when it’s released next year, because after Life is Strange and Remember Me you certainly became one of my favorite developers now. 

It’s been more than 7 months now since I finished the game and I’m still thinking about it every day, browsing fan art and reading fan fictions and fan theories. I’m so glad I found out about the game and I’m really proud to be a part of the wonderful community you created through this masterpiece. To put it in a nut shell I just want to thank anyone involved in the game, you are all hella amazeballs!