Life Is Strange: Steph’s Story Shows a Franchise Still Determined to Change Video Games
Few franchises have received as much praise for their narratives as Life is Strange, so it isn’t a total surprise that the series just received a spin-off in the form of the novel Steph’s Story. This might seem to some gamers, however, like a spin-off too far. Video game adaptations don’t exactly have a reputation for capturing the quality of the source material. However, here is a genuinely great piece of work that reflects a series of stories keen to punch above expectations.
Many of the most significant series in gaming have leaped across to the printed page. Doom is the perfect example of an unlikely candidate making that jump. Its original two titles were basically plotless games that managed to spawn a galaxy-spanning quartet of novels. Halo is undoubtedly the most successful example, having churned out 30 novels and 15 comic book series.
There tend to be common threads amidst pretty much every example, however, that makes these feats less impressive. Sometimes they’ll bring in video game mechanics, the first Doom tale being uniquely laughable in how its protagonist scurries around for keycards and avoids acid pits. Halo is just simply workmanlike, unable to capture the games' surprising awe and wonder amidst otherwise familiar military fiction.
There’s also a timely point of comparison with Resident Evil, a series which has sold millions of games but has an extensive number of lesser-known books. There were seven novels released in the West in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, and many others that have never been translated into English. It’s perhaps telling as to their quality that they haven’t been reprinted recently, and that the notoriously poor films starring Milla Jovovich are much better known.
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