The opening scene for Life is Strange: True Colors has been released by developer Deck Nine Games.
The short introductory scene shows protagonist Alex Chen being asked a series of questions about her upcoming move to the small town of Haven Springs in the Colorado mountains. Having been at the Helping Hands foster care home for the past eight years, it's clear that Alex has already been through a lot ahead of this move.
As Alex, you have a supernatural empathic power that enables you to absorb and manipulate the emotions of other people. This allows her to better understand what someone else is feeling and why they might be acting in a certain way, but it also means she feels the emotions herself and can sometimes be overwhelmed by them.
As you can see in the clip above, which also posted on the official Life is Strange Twitter account, the scene shows just how the use of performance capture technology used at Deck Nine Games is able to show the subtlest of facial expressions. From the movements of her eyes to the way she sits and responds, you can really get a sense of how Alex's feeling within the moment without the need for her to say very much.
As a first for the series, Deck Nine Games captured full body and facial animations along with VO at the same time. Zak Garris told 12DOVE in a recent interview that the process was like "shooting a tv show" and produces a more "nuanced and expressive performance." In another interview with 12DOVE, actor Erika Mori, who's playing the role of Alex Chen in the upcoming adventure, also shed light on the experience, adding that "the ability to have just a single person be the body physicality, face and voice of the character really allowed an authentic and organic performance."
Set to release on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X on September 10, True Colors also brought the news of a remaster for the Life is Strange collection.
For a closer look at the new protagonist, here's how Deck Nine hopes to create an authentic and relatable protagonist in Alex Chen.
