Steph’s Story is authored by Rosiee Thor and published by Titan Books
The first everLife Is Strangetie-in novel, subtitled Steph’s Story,has been announcedfor next year. The novel will be a prequel to last year’sLife Is Strange: True Colors, and will follow recurring character Steph Gingrich and her bandmate-slash-girlfriend Izzie on the tour that will eventually lead them to Haven Springs, the game’s setting.
There are a few factors that have contributed to Steph becoming unexpectedly well-regarded among the LIS fandom. For one thing, she’s much nicer than many of the series' other characters: her worst on-screen crime is selling bootleg DVDs to her high school classmates, and while she has her fair share of flaws, she’s unwaveringly supportive and fiercely loyal to her friends. Plus her voice actor, Katy Bentz, is extremely engaged with the LIS fan community, which in turn has fed back into Steph’s own warm reception by players.
Izzie, meanwhile, is someone that, as anLIS die-hard, I’ve been keen to get to know more. She made her brief debut in True Colors as the franchise’s first explicitly trans character and only trans woman to date, so I’m pleased that she’s becoming less of a throwaway side character, even though her eventual break-up with Steph is a foregone conclusion. Do I hope she has a secret superpower? Maybe a little bit. It’d be weird if there were none on display in a Life Is Strange story, after all.
It’ll certainly be interesting to see how the novel deals with the branching storylines from the games which result from choices left up to the player. The True Colors story DLC that made Steph playable has already shown that the fates of Rachel, Chloe, and the residents of Arcadia Bay had an understandably huge impact on her. But of the three, only Rachel’s destiny is set in stone; and, unlike a video game, a novel can’t ask you what ending you saw in Season One before deciding which version of the ongoing story to show you. Or can it? Honestly, I have no clue at this point.
