Life is Strange: True Colors (NSP, XCI) ROM + v1.0.4 Update + All DLCs

Life Is Strange: True Colors is an adventure game developed by Deck Nine and published by Square Enix. It was released on 10 September 2021 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Stadia; a Nintendo Switch version was released on 7 December 2021. The plot focuses on Alex Chen, a young woman who can experience the emotions of others, as she tries to solve the mystery behind a tragedy that happened in her life.

It is the third main installment in the Life Is Strange series, succeeding Life Is Strange 2. Unlike previous entries in the series, it was released in its entirety while still being structured into chapters. It received generally favorable reviews from critics. Critics praised the game’s characters, writing, story themes, voice acting, and facial animations, but criticized its pacing, repetitive environments, and lack of impactful choices.

GAMEPLAY

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, allowing the player to figure out what caused their emotions and to opt to guide Alex in helping comfort the character.

PLOT

In April 2019, Alexandra “Alex” Chen (Erika Mori) left 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.