Life is Strange (Original) Spoilers for whole game.
Why (to me) Bae>Bay is the best ending for Life Is Strange (Original Game).
I know it's like over a year after its release but my interest in this game never died, I was waiting for a good time to post this and with before the storm coming out periodically over the next few months and the annoucement that s2 is in the works, here it is.
I presume if you decided to click on this post, you have played the original Life is Strange until the very end of episode five. I also presume you are very angry at the game for only having two direct endings: Saving Arcadia Bay or Saving Chloe, Max’s implied Girlfriend or best friend depending on the decisions made throughout the 5 episodes. Here I will say my reasons for believing the best ending for Life is Strange is saving Chloe, you may agree or disagree it’s a free world. This is just my opinion.
It makes most of the game you just finished completely non-canon. I know this is a very selfish reason. But do we as players, who just devoted a lot of time to this game, really want everything that we just played to not exist in the world of the game? It has been heavily implied by the developers that completely resetting the timeline back to Chloe dying in the bathroom also affects Max, causing her to forget the week that could have existed. As a player that extremely irks me that Max will not be the same Max that we shaped during our gameplay.
Put yourself in Max’s shoes. Imagine yourself standing on a cliff beside someone you love whether romantically or platonically. You are the one deciding to kill someone you love. Can you really say wholeheartedly that you would sacrifice them? In its essence, human nature is very selfish. In my opinion, you are one of the kindest people in the world if you could sacrifice someone so close to you for people you barely know. Even if you do prefer the bay>bae ending you must admit that the bae>bay ending is slightly more realistic for Max as a character.
This ending is much more open-ended for fan interpretation. This is very much a personal thing, I personally much prefer stories that give very open endings so that the fans can decide what their own canon ending is. I find the Bay>Bae ending much more constricting. Especially as someone who likes to write and play with different ideas in stories. You can imagine this ending to be as weirdly happy or sad as you want. (my own canon ending for lis is for another day and for after before the storm has finished in case I want to revise it)
A big argument against the bae>bay ending is the fate of Mark Jefferson being unknown compared to in the bay>bae ending in which he is arrested for his crimes and assumed to receive jail time. There is a chance he dies in the storm however that is not guaranteed as the game never shows how far the barn is from Arcadia Bay. Also, if he was in the bunker during the storm he would easily survive it. You see as Max never goes to the party in the canon October 11th, does Mark stay at the party until the storm starts to come or does he take someone else (probably Victoria) back to the dark room instead of his planned victim, Max? But no matter what happens to him during the storm, Max and Chloe can still report what they “believe” the barn to be, leading the cops to countless evidence against Jefferson. The only barrier would be getting into the bunker and hoping the cops do believe Max and Chloe which I think they would. (they are white after all)
Lastly, I believe the death of Chloe, a canon queer character is unfair to many of the wlw who decided to play Life is Strange due to the possibility of seeing a canon wlw relationship in a pretty popular game. Especially as the #BuryYourGays trope was very strong in 2015.
The only thing I do see as a complete downside to this ending is obvious; the destruction of Arcadia Bay and the deaths it would cause. Although, as I said earlier this ending is very open and the shots we do get off Arcadia Bay do not show it completely destroyed, very damaged but not entirely gone. The chance is slim for survivors but still possible.
The deciding factor for myself when I originally played Life is Strange Episode 5 back when it was first released was the fact that in the situation Max was in I would without hesitation choose someone I love, however selfish that would make me.
I’d love your opinions. I would prefer no fighting over this though, this is just my opinion.