"Choices matter"?

[Verenti]

How can choices matter in a game that is a prequel. By definition, the outcome of all your actions will arrive at a predestined destination and nothing you can do can change that. Even if you stop playing the game and refuse to advance the action, Chloe ends up where she is at the beginning of Life is Strange: without fail or variation.

This is the complete opposite of choices having consequence.

[Atréju]

Kinda but no.

[Literally a Pigeon]

No. You are wrong. Maybe it doesnt have choices on the big scale, but on the small person to person scale of course it has consequences. Sorry you aren't getting the life-or-death telltale games give you. This is on a smaller scale.

[Palatine Katinka]

It's set three years before LiS. Your choices will have consequences within the span of this game, the next few days of Chloe and Rachel's life. Sure you wont stop what happens to Rachel in two and a half years or what happen to Chloe in three years (the events from you playing LiS) but you can change what happens and how people react in this game.

[RE-L124C41]

I had the strange urge to be a good influence on Chloe through my choices. Pretty ridiculous if you think about it.

[Atréju]

You don't play chloe. Chloe plays you.

[RE-L124C41]

Originally posted by Reek ma name s Reek:

You don't play chloe. Chloe plays you.

So deep...

[Covfefe]

The only choices that matter are to infect your computer with Denuvo or not to infect your computer with Denuvo.

[Atréju]

Originally posted by Blame!:

Originally posted by Reek ma name s Reek:

You don't play chloe. Chloe plays you.

So deep...

Thank you.

[RE-L124C41]

Originally posted by Reek ma name s Reek:

Originally posted by Blame!:

So deep...

Thank you.

My pleasure.

[Verenti]

But those choices don't matter because you end up at an immutable place in history. Every action you take has the same long term outcome. If every action, including inaction, has the same ultimate consequence, then choice is illusory in the most charitable consideration of this set up.

This is especially illustrative of one of the themes of the original game: that even with time travel, you can't elude destiny. However, if this is one of your themes (and it clearly has been) claiming that choices matter is disingenious. I might be inclined to say it's downright deceptive.

[RE-L124C41]

Originally posted by Verenti:

But those choices don't matter because you end up at an immutable place in history. Every action you take has the same long term outcome. If every action, including inaction, has the same ultimate consequence, then choice is illusory in the most charitable consideration of this set up.

This is especially illustrative of one of the themes of the original game: that even with time travel, you can't elude destiny. However, if this is one of your themes (and it clearly has been) claiming that choices matter is disingenious. I might be inclined to say it's downright deceptive.

Didn't you read Palatina Katinka's comment?

[Verenti]

Originally posted by Blame!:

Originally posted by Verenti:

But those choices don't matter because you end up at an immutable place in history. Every action you take has the same long term outcome. If every action, including inaction, has the same ultimate consequence, then choice is illusory in the most charitable consideration of this set up.

This is especially illustrative of one of the themes of the original game: that even with time travel, you can't elude destiny. However, if this is one of your themes (and it clearly has been) claiming that choices matter is disingenious. I might be inclined to say it's downright deceptive.

Didn't you read Palatina Katinka's comment?

Yes, this was directly in response to it (although I didn't use the quote system.)

[Palatine Katinka]

Then no choice in any game matters because nothing will stop the inevitable heat death of the universe.

[RE-L124C41]

Originally posted by Palatine Katinka:

Then no choice in any game matters because nothing will stop the inevitable heat death of the universe.

You had to go large scale now, didn't you? :)

[Verenti]

Originally posted by Palatine Katinka:

Then no choice in any game matters because nothing will stop the inevitable heat death of the universe.

Sure, if you want to be nihilistic about life. However, most games are a closed narrative. They have a beginning, a middle and an end. Not all games allow the play to input into this loop, but some games, including the original life is strange, do. Some games allow for branching narratives because people enjoy the idea that they have some control over the plot. Therefore, we can just a narrative and the outcome of a narrative without reference to outside media.

There are other titles, Mass Effect 3 comes to mind, that tout choice and consequence, but ultimately fail to deliver and titles like that have been, rightly, criticised on those grounds. Other titles that are stand alone stories usually allow for a degree of vagueness that allows the player to fill in the blank as they wish.

Now, this is not a stand alone title. It's a prequel and it feeds into the events of another title. Prequels are fine for static media, like books, because it's just adding to a universe. The user has no influence on the outcome. However, games are an interactive media. Therein lies the problem. The outcome of the story is known at the outset. The story does not and, more or less, cannot exist without an outside reference point. It is dissimilar to the heatdeath of the universe, because the heatdeath matters very little to any given narrative, whereas the future events relating to the same characters in the same town, in a story that seeks to further establish said future events have a direct relationship. Therefore, that this story is played out of order has a profound effect that cosmic and geological scale events simply do not.