What is the Future of ‘Life is Strange 2’ after “Wastelands”?
The third episode of Life is Strange 2 was the make-or-break episode for this struggling spiritual sequel to one of my favorite games of all time. After playing “Wastelands,” I can say that I’m still not convinced that this story has as much narrative potential as its predecessor, but that the series has finally articulated what kind of game it is trying to be and what kind of story it is trying to tell. I identified three main themes throughout this third episode: tension between the Diaz brothers, their unstable lifestyle, and the exploration of identity as Sean enters adulthood.
This first theme of brotherly tension manifests itself in the game’s opening gambit. The episode begins with a flashback to three months before the devastating events that framed the first episode: the death of the Diaz brothers’ father. For the first time since “Roads,” we see a glimpse of the mundane day-to-day relationship between Sean and Daniel’s life before the incident with their father, and how he was a necessary guiding force in their early development after their mother abandoned them.
The scene begins with Sean laying alone in his room, listening to music. Daniel sneaks in while Sean’s headphones are in and attempts to steal a watch from his desk. Sean notices and chases after Daniel and punishes him in a normal, brotherly way, with either a noogie or the classic “stop hitting yourself” that siblings inflict on each other. As they break apart, Daniel bumps into the bookshelf in the living room, knocking over one of their dad’s trophies and breaking it. You have the option to pin it on Daniel or take the responsibility, but either way the two brothers devolve into a “he said, she said” situation when trying to explain to their father what happened. You can think of this flashback as a parable for the tone of the episode to come.
One of the things that this third episode does really well is rely on its licensed music, which has always been one of the strongest aspects of Life is Strange. The flashback transitions into the present timeline of the vagabond Diaz brothers who have taken refuge in a hippie camp out in the great sequoias of Northern California. While the second episode, “Rules,” ended with the Diaz brothers hitching a ride along a southbound train, the third episode begins with Sean and Daniel being well-established within this hippie camp.
The Diaz brothers are in tension throughout much of this episode, especially in the beginning. Sean is panged by feelings of (righteous) jealousy when observing the relationship between Daniel and Finn, who we met in episode two. Since establishing themselves in this camp, Daniel has started following Finn around everywhere, and we see how Finn functions like the cool older brother compared to Sean. Finn doesn’t enforce rules or tell Daniel what to do and encourages many of his more rebellious tendencies. As a young kid, Daniel eats up this freedom and attention.
Sean encounters Finn and Daniel in the woods during target practice. Its implied by the fact that Daniel hits six bulls-eye throws in a row that he’s manipulating his throws with his telekinetic powers. Furthermore, he’s using his powers in front of someone else and doing so to receive praise and attention. Daniel is literally being encouraged to do the opposite of what Sean has established with him. Sean is willing to let some of this go, and Finn challenges him to throw some bulls-eyes of his own. This moment was a surprising little mini game that reminded me of something you might try at a carnival and was a nifty once-off mechanic that helped reinforce the stunning fact of Daniel’s six bulls-eyes.
They soon return to camp, where the stage is set for the main conflict in this episode, which is not necessarily between the brothers, but with regard to the way the Diaz brothers are making money to continue their journey south. The first line of contention is the growing fact that Daniel wants to break course from Sean’s plan of going to Puerto Lobos in Mexico, but instead travel to Arizona where ostensibly his mother is living. The second line of contention is the awful working conditions that Sean and Daniel experience.
Everyone in the hippie camp works on an illegal marijuana farm out in the woods. Each day, a burly and gruff man named Big Joe drives up to the camp and tells everyone to hop in the flatbed, which has been outfitted with benches for everyone to sit on during the ride. They then drive off to the greenhouses, where Big Joe barks at everyone to get inside, keep quiet, and get to work. He even assaults Cassidy, which by this point you can tell is a vague love interest for Sean, and you have to either react to Big Joe or let it go. Even though it felt like the wrong thing to do, I chose to let this go, because confronting him felt like I was in for a black eye and a bloody nose otherwise.
This whole marijuana operation reeks of exploitation. The imagery of all the hippies riding in the back of the truck while a white man drives them to their mundane, repetitive, oppressive labor conditions is all too real for contemporary America. They are generally not allowed to talk when working, nor can they criticize anything about their job or complain without a threat from Big Joe, who is sitting in a chair monitoring their work while playing games on his phone.
You’re also introduced to Merrill, who runs this whole operation. He is a stern but respectable looking man, and most of the time stays in his office with the door closed. But Merrill expresses an intolerance for Daniel that I barely understand. There is a moment when Merrill divides the group of workers into indoor and outdoor duties. Daniel complains that he wants to be outside, and Finn offers to swap roles with him, which cheers Daniel up. Merrill immediately cracks down on this and threatens to fire both Daniel and Sean if Daniel keeps up this behavior. Admittedly, a nine-year-old is not the ideal worker for an illegal marijuana farm (is anyone?), but Merrill makes it abundantly clear that Sean has to get a handle on Daniel’s behavior – and fast.
Another moment of interesting gameplay, kind of similar to the knife throwing target practice from earlier in the episode, is the process of trimming up buds from the marijuana plants. Playing on the Playstation 4, I was tasked with timing presses of the L2 and R2 trigger buttons to snip away parts of the bud, and then had to notice when the scissors were too sticky and clean them. This is the simplest gameplay imaginable, and yet I kept pressing these buttons too early, which results in Sean snipping his fingertips instead of the flower buds.
This scene goes on a bit too long, but there is a lot of character development that happens throughout the sequence. We see Hannah and Cassidy bicker about their values and plans for the future. Even though they are friends and everyone lives a similarly carefree lifestyle, there is some tension within this group. Big Joe quickly shuts this conversation down, and you’re forced to continue on with this menial labor until the day is done. Eventually you learn that Merrill is going to punish you all by withholding your paychecks, which outrages everyone. But they have no choice, no alternative for work. There’s nothing they can do.
Sean recognizes pretty early on in the episode that he needs to mend his relationship with Daniel. Not only is Finn taking all of Daniel’s attention and energy away, we learn that Sean has been spending a lot of time with the others – Cassidy specifically – as well. As a way to patch their relationship, Sean promises Daniel that they will go off in secret to train his powers, which have considerably progressed by now. Daniel can now control multiple things at once, his precision has greatly increased, and he even lifts an entire sequoia trunk out of the lake. It’s impressive and scary to think that a nine-year-old kid now has this much control over his telekinetic powers, and made me wonder if he had as much control on his impulses and behaviors.
The brothers return back to join the camp where everyone is gathered around a bonfire at the center of their camp, drinking and smoking away. You have the option to partake in the smoking and drinking. This scene was interesting to me on two levels. At one level, Sean’s character so far through Life is Strange 2 has demonstrated to me that he’s the kind of kid who would absolutely take a hit from a joint or smoke out of a bong, especially in social situations. At another level, Sean knows that every action that he takes will be observed by Daniel, and what Sean chooses to deem acceptable, Daniel will interpret as acceptable for himself as well. There is genuine tension between these two aspects of the scene.
If you choose to smoke and drink a bit, as I did, then the game responds endearingly with noticable effects to your perspective as Sean’s character. The edges of the screen start to blur a bit, the scene can go in and out looking hazy, and the camera also signals an increased level of intoxication. It’s a small bit of effective game design that blends believability into the scene.
This scene also begins to reinforce the second theme I mentioned at the beginning of this article, which is the them of an unstable lifestyle. Every aspect of their lifestyle is unstable in this episode. The brothers are living in a vagabond camp, knowing that they’re bound to move on. They’re working a job that might fire them if Daniel acts up. Furthermore, there is no longer a guarantee that they’ll even get paid for their work. Sean is experimenting with his identity, as evidenced by his participation in the drinking and smoking. From this point on in the episode, these themes become clearer.
One of the ways this theme of instability crystalizes is when Sean breaks from the group around the fire to sit with Cassidy and receive a tattoo. This is Sean’s first tattoo, and there’s enough implied in the scene to suggest that he might not have gotten this tattoo but for the fact that Cassidy thinks its cool – and so do the others. You have the choice of letting Cassidy decide a tattoo for Sean, or you can choose a wolf on your own. I chose the wolf: the metaphor for the Diaz brothers.
As everyone goes off to bed, exhausted from the long day, Cassidy and Hannah confront Sean about how shaggy his hair has become. This is especially noticeable due to the flashback at the beginning of the episode, when Sean’s hair is shorter than we’ve ever seen. You have the option to blow them off, but since Sean had definitely taken a liking to Cassidy, I figured he’d want to take her opinion in terms of his appearance. So I let them cut Sean’s hair, which made me burst out laughing. After they’re done and Sean sees his hair, he now has a silly, edgy mohawk.
There is also a particular scene that I appreciated, which is a moment of minor choice in dialogue that resonated with me as a player. It’s made abundantly clear that part of this hippie lifestyle at camp is a free and open sexuality, which means hooking up with people of any gender. Sean acts bashfully about his own sexuality at first, which causes the camp members to ask him about it. You have the choice of answering in four ways.
One way that Sean can respond is by shying away from the question by saying he’s not into dating. This shuts down the need for him to expand any further. There’s an option to say he’s had many girlfriends, which strikes me as the kind of insecure bragging that many teenage men exhibit. Another way he can respond is by saying he’s more into girls. You can also pick the option of saying he thinks some boys are cute, which pleasantly surprised me that the game was willing to write Sean’s character this way. You truly have agency in this scene.
One of the biggest problems with Life is Strange 2 is that, unlike the original game, the story feels like its completely on rails. Your choices ultimately don’t change what happens or how characters respond to you. The major choice sequences in the game where you are made aware that your decision will affect the rest of the narrative are lackluster at best in Life is Strange 2. But this little campfire scene where you get to shape how Sean expresses his sexuality actually changes what happens next.
If you decide to play Sean as a straight character, then your love interest with Cassidy accelerates. If you choose to express Sean’s bisexuality, then you end up kissing Finn. I am very cynical about where Life is Strange 2 is heading, but this was a moment of pure astonishment and gratitude for me. I went back to replay the scene just to watch it play out differently.
Cassidy mentions that she’d like you to join her for a late night swim down at the lake near camp, but along the way you meet Finn, who is drinking on a bench. Sean sits down to polish off a beer with him, and the final arc of the episode begins. Finn proposes that you all should break into Merrill’s house and use Daniel’s powers to steal the safe full of money out of Merrill’s house. You are given the decision whether to follow Finn’s plan – after all, he did just rob you all of a paycheck and the Diaz brothers need the money for their journey to Puerto Lobos – or to shoot down the plan, claiming it’s a bad idea. In my playthrough, I rejected the plan. It seems like an inherently bad plan because of the moral impact it would have by greenlighting theft and revenge for Daniel. Furthermore, the chance of this plan backfiring seemed too great to ignore.
Eventually you separate from Finn to pursue a late night swim with Cassidy in the lake. All of the romantic tension that has been budding throughout the episode begins to blossom in this lake scene. Cassidy has been waiting for Sean, and quickly takes off her clothes. (I should mention that this episode contains multiple instances of nudity, a first for the series.) Nervously, Sean starts taking off his clothes. Embarrassed, he toes his way into the icy waters while covering his crotch. After swimming around and talking about life, Cassidy ends up making advances on Sean, leading to a peaceful scene that reminded me of a similar time from my life. I’ll spare you the details on how this scene progresses into Cassidy’s tent.
In the aftermath of all this romance, Sean and Cassidy decide to go steal Big Joe’s truck to leave the camp behind. They arrive in the dead of night, quietly breaking into his junkyard. Finding some tools from around, Sean pops the hood of one of the trucks to get it working. You have the option of popping the tires on Big Joe’s other truck with your screwdriver, which I did. Apparently, this decision has consequences: either Big Joe will chase after you in the other truck, or he won’t be able to.
Eventually, it becomes clear that the only way to break into Big Joe’s truck is to smash the window, which wakes him up. Sean hops in and starts to work on hotwiring it to get the engine started. I know Sean’s dad was a mechanic, so he’d be around auto parts throughout his childhood, but I couldn’t help but think of this as a bit of a stretch. I can’t help but wonder how many children of mechanics can hotwire a vehicle.
Inevitably, I realized that Finn had gone behind my back and taken Daniel to steal the money from the safe anyway. This is a frustrating experience, because it invalidates and undermines the illusion that the game is reacting to player choice with real consequences. It ended up not mattering what I chose. These moments are why I am cynical about the potential of Life is Strange 2.
Sean and Cassidy follow Finn and Daniel to Merrill’s house, where Finn and Daniel have already broken in. In a hamfisted moment, Merrill is awakened by the break-in and comes out with a shotgun, threatening to kill you all. The situation continues to escalate, resulting in an inevitable choice: do you choose to let Daniel use his powers and knock the shotgun out of Merrill’s hand, or do you do nothing, risk Finn being shot and killed on the spot, and hope for the best?
It immediately made sense to me that it’d be okay to use Daniel’s power in this instance. I didn’t want any of my idiot friends to get murdered for their stupid decision to break in and steal money. I could empathize with why Finn betrayed my decision, even if I was frustrated as a player at the time. But this decision to use Daniel’s powers ended up somewhat literally backfiring.
The result of using Daniel’s powers is total chaos. There are some variables with how this scene plays out based on the post-playthrough breakdown of choices. But the room explodes. Daniel’s emotions directly influence how exaggerated his powers are, and Daniel’s response in this situation was disproportionate to the situation. Everyone in the room is blown away and knocked unconscious. The episode ends with a silent display of chaos.
I watched the credits roll and thought that this episode was a marked improvement in terms of pacing from the previous episode, “Roads.” This time we got to spend the entire episodes with a consistent cast of characters, which has been one of the greatest weaknesses of Life is Strange 2 so far. Daniel’s powers, as always, were more set dressing than plot point, which continues to stunt the growth of the narrative compared to the original game. “Wastelands” delves into serious, mature subjects that young adults face: drugs, alcohol, sexuality, finding meaningful employment. But it never touches on some of the dark themes that made the original Life is Strange such a groundbreaking experience.
“Wastelands” is above average in terms of what this new season has offered so far. The music, always great, was masterfully utilized at pivotal points throughout the transitions between scenes. The environment was beautifully crafted, far beyond the scope of detail that we’ve seen in previous entries to the series. (Maybe I’m just a sucker for the breathtaking California redwoods.) I think there is still a modicum of potential in Life is Strange 2, but there is still a long road ahead if this sequel is going to become something special.
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