Back in August, Square Enix announced Life is Strange. The episodic title’s first episode now has an official release date.

Episode One makes its debut on January 30th for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC. You can currently pre-order the game via Steam’s “pre-purchase” option.

Life is Strange will be told across five episodes and centers around a photographer named Maxine Caulfield. A girl who returns to her hometown of Arcadia Bay, Oregon and gets caught up in trying to find what happened to a former best friend’s friend, who has recently gone missing. Strange employs a game mechanic that allows you to rewind time and change the course of events throughout the story. Naturally, this causes a butterfly effect that could have long term ramifications.

The first episode can be bought for $4.99 or you can buy a season pass for $19.99. What’s neat is if you are uncertain on how the game will be, you can purchase the first episode and later if you decide you want the season pass, you can buy it for $16.99. How cool is that?

My Opinion:

I love this newfound emphasis on narrative driven games that the industry is showing interest in. From the looks of the trailer, it’s clear that Life is Strange is trying to emulate the narrative success of The Fullbright Company’s Gone Home and Telltale’s The Walking Dead. This is something I wholeheartedly support and am sincerely hoping Dontnod Entertainment can tell a great and engaging tale.

Jason Patrick is an Associate Writer at MONG. He finds it weird that all the other reindeers didn’t like poor Rudolph. His nose is red, I don’t see what’s the big deal? If you’d like, follow him on Twitter.