A Quality Queer Experience: Why I Love ‘Life is Strange: Wavelengths’
Life is Strange: True Colors is one of 2021’s strongest games for a myriad of reasons, such as its compelling cast of characters, endearing setting, moody soundtrack, and choice-driven narrative. I’d go as far as to say that Life is Strange: True Colors is, in fact, the best entry in the Life is Strange series, even though the original made an indelible impact on my heart. The only potential flaw with True Colors’ delivery this year, in my view, was the sudden absence of bonus content that my Ultimate Edition copy was faced with. Not only were the included Life is Strange and Life is Strange: Before the Storm remasters delayed, but the Steph DLC, Life is Strange: Wavelengths, wouldn’t release until the following month. I paid extra to be patient, but luckily Wavelengths was worth the wait. Simple as its focus may be, I cannot recommend it enough if you’re going to play True Colors.
Life is Strange: Wavelengths features Steph Gingrich, an endearing 24-year-old woman who moved from Arcadia Bay in Washington to Haven Springs in Colorado. Steph bridges together parts of Before the Storm and True Colors through her appearance in both games. While True Colors implies the backstory for Steph’s migration between states in the intervening months between games, Wavelengths directly addresses that transitional period. The first choice asked of me by the game was before the proper story started: had I saved Arcadia Bay in my Life is Strange playthrough or not? Flashing back to the ever-divisive “Bay or Bae” choice, I recalled my decision to sacrifice Arcadia Bay and save Chloe Price, my character’s best friend and love interest. I picked the according option and Steph’s story began.
Bae or Bay? The Dilemma
Towards the latter half of Wavelengths, Steph started experiencing traumatic flashbacks having to do with my selfish choice at the end of Life is Strange. Steph could look at a poster or an album cover and suddenly find herself drenched in memories from the preceding year when an awful storm destroyed her hometown. And I felt guilty because of this. Steph is not a character that I knew in Life is Strange, as we instead meet her in Before the Storm, a prequel that was released after the original game. Seeing these involuntarily triggered memories debilitate Steph emotionally and socially was too much, and I was immediately aware of how compelling it would be to see the story of Wavelengths unfold with Arcadia Bay intact.
Regardless of the consequences of your choice to either save Arcadia Bay or not, Steph winds up in the same place when it comes to Wavelengths and True Colors. The question is to what degree she has been damaged by this event; this question troubled my Steph especially in a role-playing video call with her friend. Apart from this damage, however, Steph still faces an endless uphill climb in Wavelengths that I found beautiful to experience, despite the insecurity and lack of self-assurance and potential isolated suffering she silently endures intermittently.
Steph as a Loveable Protagonist
Steph brings her entire persona with her wherever she goes, and her move to Haven Springs initially seems to be met with mixed results. Her friend, Gabe Chen, helps her move into the town and sets her up with a niche job at the town’s local record store, a job she’s embellished her way into. Steph essentially runs the entire record store herself, and you feel her passion and creative freedom with every nook and cranny. At the beginning of Wavelengths, the atmosphere of the record store’s interior is pleasant enough but soulless, certainly in need of updating. Steph brings that needed energy to the interior space, customizing and personalizing things to make each area of the shop — even the employee space in the back which no customer can see — feel vibrant and loved.
In painting herself across the canvas of the record store, the shop’s music collection gets updated, the space continually shifts with the seasons, and everything takes a fundamentally queer, punk turn from how Steph found it. If it wasn’t already clear, Steph is a lesbian, something you can explore through conversations in Before the Storm; she’s also a romancable character for Alex Chen in True Colors, a storyline that felt perfect for that character during my playthrough. Steph, being a queer character, loudly and ostentatiously celebrates Pride Month in the record shop. Pride flags and pins are abound in the shop. Much of Steph’s radio DJ musings during this month have to do with Pride, and she makes several new friends through the queer community — however sparse it may seem to appear in a small town in the mountains of Colorado, compared to a denser metropolis like Denver.
Not only does Steph’s queerness appear through physical decoration in the record store, but the game — in a first for the Life is Strange series — presents you with an online dating scenario for Steph. Wavelengths asks you to fill out Steph’s online dating profile based on which aspects of her personality you’d like to emphasize. I adored this process because I realized early on that I identify strongly with Steph on a number of fronts. Thus, when I had the option to emphasize that Steph was a musician, gamer, and cat-lover, I had a strange dual awareness: it was like I was simultaneously filling out this profile for myself and the kind of person that attracts my attention. As briefly mentioned in my review of True Colors’ first episode, Steph is one of the most likeable characters that the series has to offer, and I think that’s largely because the writers understand how integral the queer experience is to the Life is Strange series.
But then there’s the tragedy that anyone who celebrates Pride Month must inevitably face: July 1st. Steph had her whole month to jubilantly celebrate Pride, but suddenly it’s time to take down all the decorations: the pronoun pins, the flag on the glass front door, the picketing signs. It’s a mundane series of tasks, like almost all interactions that comprise the Life is Strange games, but taking down Pride decorations was one of the most painful gaming activities I’ve faced all year. It’s nearly impossible to explain to someone who doesn’t see the world through a queer lens, but the safety and comfort and encouragement that these otherwise insignificant inanimate objects provide defies words. It’s a feeling of loss, of packing away yourself, of going back to hide in the proverbial closet — as melodramatic as it may sound to an outsider.
The Aesthetic Success of Wavelengths
Music has always been a fundamental aspect of what elevates the Life is Strange games above its peers, and Wavelengths is no exception. I am less familiar with the musical artists who comprise the myriad mixtapes that Steph DJs on the record store’s radio station, but the vibes were impeccable. (Well, maybe not the country music.) The soundtrack features the return of obscure darlings like Alt-J, Sigur Ros, and Portugal, The Man, but also presents new artists that I found myself equally loving like Hayley Kiyoko and Agnes Obel.
Steph also exercises her songwriting ability and musicianship throughout Wavelengths. The game proffers a half-dozen moments of Steph listening to a work-in-progress demo of a song idea floating around in her head. You have a choice with each listen of how you would like to modify the song — using synth or guitar, adding an angry or a celebratory breakdown, making an anthemic chorus, etc. — and, by the end of the game, you hear Steph’s song in its entirety. I even had the option to play her song on the radio station. While the song wasn’t an instant hit, it was heartfelt and vulnerable.
What Remains of Wavelengths
Wavelengths is largely repetitive in its structure in the way that Steph’s job probably feels repetitive. Thus, the meaning in Wavelengths is to be found in the tiny moments of personality, of making the best of a dead-end job, of intertwining your sense of love, passion, and creativity with something that doesn’t demand it outright. In Wavelengths, Steph revitalizes this record shop, and that little arc is beautiful, even in moments where Steph falls apart and doubts herself. The best video game places are the places we return to in our imaginations, and I will be returning to the record store for many years to come.
I will remember the little things about Wavelengths. I will remember the bobble head, playing around with it while I answered the questions called in by listeners. I will remember the D20 die, rolling it each time I told a fortune on the air. I will remember the cool rocking sunflower figure that danced around with a Flying V guitar. I will remember the shop redecorating for Pride Month, for Halloween, for New Years. I will remember a scavenger hunt.
Wavelengths is a game that feels like a warm cup of holiday tea, steeped in nostalgia and memories, bringing comfort and familiarity even as you experience a narrative that brings something new and occasionally surprising. I loved my time with Wavelengths, and I think Deck Nine — the new leads of the Life is Strange series — have hit their stride completely with their 2021 releases. Life is Strange: True Colors is probably the best Life is Strange game, and Wavelengths only makes me feel solidified in that opinion.
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