10 best gaming surprises of 2021 (and 5 terrible ones)

07) Great Moment – Life is Strange: True Colors was exceptional

There’s this thing that happens when a beloved franchise is taken over by another company and it normally isn’t great. Little Big Planet becomes a broken buggy mess, essentially ending the franchise. Pokemon games become broken ghosts of what once was. Metal Gear. Period.

It’s normally not a great sign. So when Life is Strange revealed that there was going to be a new game made by studio Deck Nine instead of Dontnod, I got worried. I love the series and everything it does to my brain and didn’t want to see it die out like other franchises I loved before.

Luckily, that was not the case here. Life is Strange: True Colors is easily one of my favorite games of the past year. Your character, Alex Chen, is invited to live in a small mountain town by her brother. As she’s introduced to the people of this small town, we, the player, are introduced to her mysterious ability to read people’s emotions. If someone’s lying, angry, hurting, joyful, we see it. And if we have to we can go so far as to experience their thoughts as well.

And Life is Strange: True Colors takes full advantage of this as they let us encounter a wealth of fascinating and diverse characters each with their own lives. Each with their own part to play in a town so fantastic I had to look it up to make sure it was real. And ultimately you use Alex’s powers to not only forge a new life for herself but also uncover a massive secret that will both literally and metaphorically rock the city to its core.

Combine this with the fact that when playing using a PS5 Dualsense control you actually feel Alex’s nervous tension in the triggers when she’s trying to read someone she’s nervous about, and it created a powerful experience that needs to be seen.