The wavelengths DLC isn't all that popular, and I can 100% see why that is. Hell, I even thought about stopping to play it because I wasn't having any fun. But while forcing myself through it, I started to love it too. It tackles something similar to the main game, the mental health of your character. Over the 9 months you play in, you can see Steph go through a rough time, going deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole until she ends up at rock bottom. It was at that point I started to realize what it was about. It's a story about someone going through a personal crisis. Every attempt at pulling themselves out of it, they just end up in a deeper emotional hole. It's a realistic way of showing how self questioning, and things out of your control can drag you down. True Colors is excellent at telling a story about emotions and mentality. Wavelengths actually shows you the mentality and emotions of those very people. In that way I consider Steph to be more realistic and relatable than Alex herself (at least in this DLC) because duh, superpowers.

I have this weird thing where I don't play a Life is Strange game, until the next one was already announced.
For this one, I actually believe that it might have been better that way. I could have never connected with Alex as deeply as I did if I played this when it came out, since I probably never had to deal with some central emotions of this game by that time.

Alex is the first main character in the series, for which her power isn't something comparable to a god. Her power itself isn't even explained to it's fullest, contrary to the previous main characters where the exact moment they gained it was shown. Her power has caused her nothing but suffering for her entire life. You can clearly notice how emotionally disconnected she is most of the game compared to every one around her. Only sometimes her own emotions become too much for her and she completely bursts.

Seeing how everyone around you is affected by the things that are going on, while you for the first time try to use your power for good is a powerful way to show different peoples way of handling sensitive topics. The big reveal I not only predicted 2 chapters ahead of time AND I was spoiled about, but it ended up not even being the biggest reveal of the game.

Now, apart from the story, I consider the art to be the best it's ever been. Ray Tracing looks beautiful with these semi-realistic comic book / art graphics. The original Life is Strange had a very artistic approach, but especially the animations often had a very stiff impression. Life is Strange: Double Exposure almost looked too realistic for a Life is Strange game in the trailers. At least for my liking. But this game has a perfect blend between artistic graphics and realistic animations.

The music might my favorite so far in the series. They went all out on the licensing too. The fact that the album of this game costs 600$ on Discogs speaks for itself. I've listened to this games soundtrack all the time. It has a song for everything. At some points it even surprised me with a song because I never thought it would properly fit into a Life is Strange Game.


However, not it's time for some negatives too.

I feel like the choices never mattered less than here. Of course there are a lot of choices that have a long lasting effect and get back to you late in the game. But there are all the more of them that seem to not matter in the end at all. At many times, I had to realize that my choice might affect the dialogue, but the final outcome was always predetermined. This game had to chance to be so much more impactful if they allowed for some more bad things to happen.

As it is normal for these games, at many times I felt that none of the choices represent what I would do in such a situation. And sometimes the game failed to properly convey to me, if I can come back to a conversation and choose all possible option, or if I only get once chance, which led to quite the frustration when it ended up being a single choice conversation.

I don't want to spoil the ending. But I can tell here that it definitely fell apart while building up to it. In my opinion, it was somehow too rushed and too long at the same time. The wrong things went by too quick and the wrong things were stretched out too much. That's all I'll say here. But I nonetheless, still enjoyed the ending a ton.

My wavelengths review is on it's dedicated DLC page. My rating for it is also a 4/5.


As for my conclusion. This is definitely not the objectively best Life is Strange. When talking objectively, it's hard to compare to the First and Second game. But for me personally, this game connected with me more than those two have. I don't know if it's appropriate to call my favorite, simply because it's been too long since I played the previous games. But it has made me think and feel more than I remember the previous games.