It's abnormal that a game series gets stronger with each instalment, as most lose that initial spark they had, the special something that players loved about the title. This power can be lost over a few games, as the developers and designers begin scraping the bottom of the ideas barrel for insight. Or it can be lost in a single game, where something flops so badly, even the community decides to give up on it.

Episode four of Life is Strange comes back even stronger than the marvellous Chaos Theory did, it builds on the emotional roller-coaster that the players were on throughout the entire experience and then knocks you for six as it gives you the first choices of the game. Never before have I been so hideously conflicted about a simple fifty-fifty decision, only twenty short minutes into the opening scenes.

For those of you who haven’t played the game, or aren't familiar with the beautiful narrative, the closing moments of the third episode saw Max learning she can actually transport herself through time by using a photo as a memory.
Using this new ability, she travelled back and stopped Chloe's father, William, from dying in a fatal car crash the day he went to pick up Joyce from work. This totally changed the reality that we've known thus far and confuses our want-to-be heroine as she discovers she's doing more damage than good.

It's revealed that in the current reality, which was forever changed when Max saved William, that Chloe was paralysed completely by, rather interestingly, another car crash. This is where things get heavy on your heartstrings, after a horrible couple of cut scenes, because you have to watch as this brave, intelligent young woman asks you to shut down her life support.
Supported suicide and euthanasia are huge ethical debates that are still controversial topics in today’s world. And seeing this in a game where you've become so attached to the two main characters was absolutely harrowing, because it brought the issues down to a level the player could relate to.

It boils down to you not wanting your friend to suffer any more, because they've already gone through hell and there's nothing you can do to help them otherwise. Of course, on the other hand, how on earth do you have the authority or right to end their life? To boot, when they're gone, you have to live with that consequence.
Players of Life is Strange clearly thought about these issues too, because the split between the choices was only 49% (who didn't turn off the machine) to 51% (who did, and fulfilled Chloe's last wishes). Thankfully we, as the onlookers, understand that Max can easily rewrite this world, like she did before.

She finds the same old photograph and goes back again, this time simply watching as William grabs his keys and leaves. This sends the player back into their original reality, where Chloe is researching locations for Kate's disappearance.
Episode four is easily the longest segment thus far, which moves faster than any of the others as well, and is winding up for a finale of utterly glorious proportions that will shake everything up. However, before all that, you have to find out what Nathan exactly did to Kate Marsh, and where he took her on the night of the viral video.

After collecting all the correct evidence, from drug dealing Frank and an unwilling Nathan, who you can watch getting his backside handed to him by Warren if you don't intervene, Max and Chloe begin to try and piece everything together. The game gives the player only a few hints at this point, as Max's internal dialogue serves as the 'hot-cold' way of determining whether you've found the right combination of dates, texts or locations.

As you work your way through each part of the evidence board, Frank's client list which you get off him (dead or alive, depending on how you played it), David's surveillance notes and Nathan's text messages, from his phone, a horrific image begins to form. During the evening of the party, it turns out that Nathan took Kate to an old barn, owned by his family of course, on the outskirts of Arcadia Bay when she was drunk or, by this point, dosed on GHB.

Upon arriving at the barn, everything seems normal. Nothing seems out of place, openly suspicious or even noteworthy, but it is the right place. Using some rewinding magic and searching mechanics that we know and love from Life is Strange, perhaps reveals something that we wished we had not seen in the first place.

A hidden panel leading to an underground bunker of sorts. Then the name of the episode suddenly makes gut-wrenchingly awful sense. This subterranean lair is seemingly the twisted workshop of Nathan Prescott, who has drugged several other women and taken lewd, revealing photos, which are then stored in red binders. But the worst of it is just around the corner, because there's a folder marked 'Rachel'.

This is actually a bonus scene, which is something I didn't realise until I saw it later, in a video explaining that learning about Rachel's fate is actually non-canon and hugely impacts the outcome of the episode. Needless to say, what happened to her was tragic. And what happens in the final moments of Dark Room are more powerful and crazy than any of the prior twists and turns combined, because nobody, and I mean nobody, will have seen it coming.

Life is Strange has proven itself to be a powerful voice in the community, and with a story like this one, who can say otherwise? This addition is gripping, enthralling and brilliant all in one and honestly my favourite so far. Hopefully the game's finale, released in October, can live up to the drama that it has created in it's wake.

   Life is Strange (Episode 4: Dark Room)          * * * * *