Life is Strange: Reunion picks up exactly where Double Exposure left off, dropping Max Caulfield and Chloe Price into a new crisis with a familiar ticking clock. A catastrophic fire is coming to Caledon University in three days, and Max has just enough time-rewind ability left to stop it — if she can navigate a secret society, a shapeshifting ally, and a timeline that keeps shifting under her feet.
What do you need to know before starting?
Before the story begins, Reunion asks you to account for your history with the franchise. Five import choices cover your relationships with Vinh Lang, Amanda Thomas, and Chloe (friend or romantic), whether you saved Chloe or sacrificed her alongside Arcadia Bay in the original Life is Strange, and whether you helped Safi in Double Exposure. These aren't cosmetic. They shape dialogue, relationship dynamics, and how certain characters treat Max throughout the game. Pick carefully, or import your save if you have one.
The story is set one year after Double Exposure. Max's shift ability from that game is gone. Only the classic rewind mechanic carries over, and the game builds its puzzles entirely around it.
Max's rewind power in action
Chapter 1: The opening and Chloe's vision
The game opens with both Max and Chloe narrating events from Life is Strange and Double Exposure, orienting returning players and giving newcomers enough context to follow along.
Chloe's section starts backstage before a gig. Her bandmates are missing, her manager is threatening to withhold payment, and she faints before she can deal with either problem. The vision that follows is the game's first major atmospheric set piece: a distorted Overlook near Caledon University where elements from Blackwell Academy's bathrooms and the Hellerton House fireplace bleed into the same space. Chloe finds a gravestone bearing her parents' names, with Joyce's name briefly replaced by her own. Safi appears dead on the Overlook. Max stands near the lighthouse from the original game, holding her camera — then a gun.
Chloe snaps out of it, having knocked over a coffee table when she fainted. She heads out to deal with the manager and, separately, to find Max.
Max's section begins on a highway. She pulls over at a lookout, retrieves her camera from the trunk, photographs a sunset, and immediately gets an emergency text from Moses. She races to Lakeport to find Caledon already burning.
At the fire, Max finds students trapped behind chained doors and boarded windows, discovers arson evidence pointing to the Abraxas cult, and encounters security guard Noelle, who tells her to run. She spots Moses on a rooftop holding an unconscious student, drops her camera mid-sprint (freezing a developing photo), and gets knocked back by an explosion before she can reach him.
The frozen selfie she finds in her belongings — taken three days earlier — is her anchor. Using it, she sends herself back three days to the Overlook. The photo now shows the fire in its background, confirming the timeline has changed. Her first move: cancel her meeting with manager Hazel, then find Moses.
How does the Time Dojo work?
Moses's office is where the game teaches its rewind mechanics properly. He already knows about Max's powers and figures out immediately that she's arrived from the future, despite a prior agreement that time travel was off-limits. After Max shows him the altered selfie as proof of the coming fire, they run through three structured tests — the Time Dojo.
Test 1: Swordmaster Frostbite
Moses shows Max a drawing of a villain called Swordmaster Frostbite and asks her to identify which fictional character defeated him. The answer comes from examining the figurines and drawings around the office — check the bases for clues. The correct answer is Mina Hiramatsu, a magical-girl-style character. If you guess wrong, rewind and try again with no penalty.
Test 2: The locked cabinet
Max uses a screwdriver to pry open a locked cabinet, but this causes a mug inside to fall and shatter. Moses staged this deliberately. The fix: rewind, grab the cushion from the office chair, place it in front of the cabinet to catch the mug, then pry the cabinet open again. You also need to rewind the cabinet back to its locked state before presenting the intact mug to Moses.
Test 3: The kettle fire
Moses takes a mug upstairs to drop it as a catch test, but he doesn't notice the kettle next to him has caught fire. Warning him verbally doesn't work. You need to physically rush upstairs, rewind to get ahead of the sparks, and unplug the kettle before it causes damage. This test has a wrinkle: the fix wasn't part of the original timeline. Max and Moses both realize she's already changing things she shouldn't be.
After the Time Dojo, Moses tells Max she has about 15 minutes before her photography class starts. He insists she attend to avoid further timeline disruption. Don't skip it.
Max's photography class
Max arrives at the campus photography class to find students Loretta Rice, Reggie Kagan, and others waiting. She assigns them to photograph people in specific poses. When she asks a nearby female student to pose, the conversation feels oddly familiar — because the student is Safi, using her shapeshifting ability to blend in.
Helping three students (Loretta, Reggie, and a student named Jeannette) complete their shots involves rewinding and coaching their subjects, including a professor named Meho, when the first attempt doesn't land.
The more valuable discovery here: Reggie is connected to Abraxas. He makes a phone call that Loretta records with a mic gun. Max can ask Loretta to let her listen in, learning about a location called the Fermont House. Rewind afterward so Loretta doesn't know Max accessed her recordings.
After class, Max talks with Yasmin Fayyad about the approaching storm and Safi's whereabouts. Safi, still disguised, interrupts. You then choose whether to tell Yasmin you saw Safi or deny it. Telling the truth strengthens Yasmin's trust; lying makes her suspicious.
The Snapping Turtle party
Max heads to the Snapping Turtle bar for a party that Amanda is hosting. The goal here is information — specifically anything about the fire and Abraxas.
Talking to Vinh reveals that Abraxas has apparently disbanded, and that Professor Owen is his employer. Amanda knows nothing directly useful about the fire. The more productive thread comes from Lucas, who is initially reluctant to talk.
To get information from Lucas, you need two actions:
- Fake-spill beer on him so he heads to the bathroom, giving you time to examine his work at the table.
- Get his podcast contact card from nearby so you can listen to it outside.
Rewind after each action to cover your tracks. What you learn: the Fermont Street area was wrecked by the storm from Double Exposure, Abraxas is pushing to demolish the Fermont House so Caledon can expand onto the land, and the fire started at that house. That's your lead.
Meanwhile, Chloe tries to enter the Snapping Turtle and gets into a confrontation with a man named Ren and his group. Noelle breaks it up and forces everyone out. Chloe can't use the front entrance, so she climbs a metal barrel to reach the bar's balcony. Safi (still in disguise) recognizes her and touches her arm, triggering another lighthouse vision — Max with a camera that becomes a gun, preparing to fire at Chloe and Safi. Chloe breaks contact before the vision concludes.
Chloe's later backtalk against Noelle (after sneaking inside) can reduce Noelle's hostility if won. Losing it has the opposite effect. Lucas tries to help Chloe during the exchange.
Don't leave the Snapping Turtle without speaking to both Vinh and Amanda. Missing either conversation closes off context for the Fermont House section.
Fermont House and the basement
Max drives to the abandoned Fermont House, which is scheduled for demolition. She finds signs of recent activity, a partially torn boarding on a window, and flickering lights that lead her to the basement entrance.
Inside, she finds Loretta examining the space, along with an altar. Max can't explain her real reason for being there. She can get Loretta to leave by either compromising with her or threatening her.
Then the door gets blocked from outside. Men are attempting to detonate the building with Max still inside. The sequence:
- A broom can hold the door temporarily, but it isn't strong enough.
- A crowbar is strong enough to keep the door shut.
- Once the men assume the building is empty and start the detonation sequence, Max finds pliers and must cut the wires on four explosives.
- If time runs out, rewind to recover lost seconds.
- One explosive is near a metal shelf. Cutting it will cause the shelf to fall and block access to another explosive — handle the blocked one first, then return to the shelf explosive last.
Cut the explosive near the metal shelf last. Handle every other wire first, then come back to it once the blocked explosive is already disarmed.
After stopping the detonation, Max and Loretta exit the basement. Loretta charges toward the men just as police arrive, scattering them. Chloe appears, and the two escape together before the police can question them.
Chapter end: Hellerton House
The following morning, Max sits on the stairs at the Hellerton House while Chloe sleeps in her bed. A flashback fills in the gap: after escaping the Fermont House, Max brought Chloe back to Hellerton and let her stay for the night. The two have a great deal to catch up on, and the story positions their reunion as the emotional anchor for whatever comes next.
The game is still in its early chapters based on available information, and further sections covering the Abraxas cult's full role, Safi's arc, and the fire's resolution are expected as more content becomes accessible. Based on what's confirmed so far, the choices you made at the start — especially regarding your relationship with Chloe and whether you helped Safi — will carry weight in these later beats.
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