Square EnixWhen the original Life is Strange dropped back in 2015, it felt like it was coming during a particular surge for the narrative adventure game. It arrived just a few years after the critical acclaim of Telltale’s The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, as well as David Cage’s Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls; all games that, despite their flaws, revived the interactive adventure as a viable alternative to traditional mechanics-heavy gaming. But what set Life is Strange apart from other games of the same nature is the earnestness and emotional complication of how it engages with young adulthood – despite being surrounded by time-travel and a serial murderer plotline, it’s still driven almost entirely by watching our main characters Max and Chloe navigate the cruelty and callousness of adolescence as well as their own feelings for each other.Now that Amazon Prime has entered pre-production for their Life is Strange adaptation, it’ll be interesting to see how it fits in the larger legacy of coming-of-age stories on-screen. It’s important that the show doesn’t lose sight of how important teenage existential angst is, specifically the complex relationship between two young women navigating a friendship that eventually blooms into a tragic romance, because it’s another way that the game depicts the growing pains of becoming an adult. It’s lucky then that the recently hired director of the first two episodes, Karyn Kusama, has engaged with these themes in different ways across the breadth of her career.Max and Chloe’s adolescent coming-of-age is crucial to the story of Life is Strange. | Square EnixAlthough Kusama’s first film was 2005’s indie darling Girlfight (which also marked the film debut of a young Michelle Rodriguez), it’s perhaps 2009’s Jennifer’s Body that’s her biggest claim to fame. Released to mixed and mostly negative reviews at the time, the film has gone on to become a bonafide cult-classic, particularly for its subversive feminist critique of society’s apathy about abuses at the hands of powerful men, as well as the toxic, line-blurring queer relationship between best friends Jennifer Check and Anita Lesnicki.The latter point has become a rich point of analysis in the years since the film's release, as the characters never get the chance to actually explore their feelings in a meaningful, direct way, but the intensely codependent nature of their friendship and the clear mutual attraction between them make it feel like they’re avoiding something obvious. Ironically enough, Kusama went on to explore similar complex female friendships and queer relationships in the TV show Yellowjackets, which she produces and also directed the first episode of.The confusing nature of discovering your sexuality is one of the many ways Life is Strange engages with the messiness of the teenage years. | Square EnixObviously, the nature of Chloe and Max’s relationship is radically different from that of Jennifer and Needy, or the girls in Yellowjackets, but those prior works speak to the fact that Kusama has spent much of her career depicting young women discovering themselves and having deeply intimate, complex connections with other women, be they romantic or friendly. She’s a filmmaker who frequently treats the experience of girlhood with the kind of existential weight it deserves, which makes her a perfect fit for an adaptation of Life is Strange, considering that the emotional resonance of watching Chloe and Max fall in love is just as powerful as any of the game’s heavier stakes.There’s still no official word on when the show will release, which means fans will have to wait a while before visiting Arcadia Bay. But if one thing’s for certain, it’s that the central relationship of the game is in very good hands.The original Life is Strange is playable on PS4/5, Xbox One, and Switch. The new game, Life is Strange: Reunion, will be released on March 26, 2026, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.