Tear Jerker / Life Is Strange: Before the Storm

Episode 1 - "Awake"

• As beautiful as it is, the relationship between Chloe and Rachel is certainly and sadly Doomed by Canon. Not because Rachel is going to be accidentally killed, but because Rachel is canonically involved with at least two other characters by the time the original game starts. Rachel's offer to move out of Arcadia Bay with Chloe may not be genuine, as she makes the same offer to Frank Bowers, whom she was in a relationship with without Chloe knowing. In addition to that, it is confirmed by Word of God in a live stream that Rachel hooks up with Jefferson after breaking up with Frank, and he is the special person she spoke about before disappearing.
• Chloe's breakdown in the junkyard after Rachel breaks off their nascent friendship, which ends with her collapsing on the ground in tears. It really highlights how, underneath her snark and tough-as-nails persona, Chloe is just an emotionally damaged girl desperate to feel loved.
  Chloe: "(...) I don't want to ruin this the way I ruin everything else in my life. (...) I guess it's easier to be alone if you decide it's a choice. I'm sorry. For whatever I did... or didn't do. Today was the best day I've had since...since my dad died. And I screwed it up somehow. Like I screw everything up. 'Cause I'm a fucking screw up. Please, I don't want to be alone anymore."
  • During that particular scene, some optional graffiti is available. Unlike the others, however, there is no one-liner and no player choice in what Chloe creates. Instead, it's a demonic face that she draws out of absolute anger.
  • The worst part of that scene would have to be when Chloe discovers her father's car, broken, rusted, alone in the junkyard (or at least one that looks like it). Chloe can only look at it in complete and utter sadness, as though it were her father's grave itself. There's no comfort here: no doe, no Max, no Rachel. Just Chloe, alone with her own sad, angry thoughts.
  • One of the objects that Chloe can smash is a car mirror, which is hidden and not required to advance the game. Choosing to do will have Chloe raise her bat, see her reflection and just look at herself for a few moments, frozen with absolute shock and sadness. Most notably, it's the only object in the entire junkyard that gives the option to back out before destroying it.
  • The argument between the two friends gets more heartwarming later on however when Rachel apologizes to Chloe for her behavior. But it veers straight back into Tear Jerker status when we find out what Rachel's earlier behavior was all about.
• After Rachel discovers her father is having an affair, she walks off and demands to be left alone. When Chloe finds her later that night, Rachel burns a childhood photo and just breaks down into a hysterical fit of tears at the revelation, as her undying love for her father has now turned into sheer hatred.
• Really, just the fact that despite what the player may want to do to make Chloe and Rachel's lives better, it still leaves the player down the path that leads to the first game where Rachel goes missing and is discovered dead and buried, leaving Chloe - who had enlisted Max to help her find Rachel - utterly heartbroken when she discovers what happened to her old best friend.
• While we already know from the original game that Chloe resents Max for leaving and not even bothering to contact her (which she informs with her usual snark and throwing several passive-aggressive verbal jabs at Max herself), here we find out that the younger, more vulnerable Chloe was not just angry, but utterly DEVASTATED that Max took off and left her all alone when she most needed her (to boot, we see Chloe's texts to Max, which are either half-assedly answered with rainchecks or outright ignored, as well as Chloe's journal, where she created an "imaginary" Max to write her thoughts to, which turn more aggressive one by one). All of this REALLY hits home when, after Rachel apparently breaks off their budding relationship, Chloe grabs a bat at the junkyard and, screaming at the top of her lungs, smashes whatever's in her way...including an old camera.
  • Crossing over into heartwarming territory, the really sad thing is, for all her anger, Chloe REALLY misses Max and admits she'd welcome her back with open arms if she ever returned. Not only is this sad because it shows just HOW lonely Chloe is (Max really was her only friend), but it gives their relationship in the original Life is Strange a whole new meaning as upon encountering Max (not without some resentment) she does just that.
• A milder case, but whereas the original game shows David is a violent Control Freak and an abusive, oppressive, negative presence in Chloe's life, in this game, though still a stern, downright cruel hardass, he's also Joyce's boyfriend trying to build a positive relationship with his stepdaughter-to-be, only to (somewhat depending on your choices) have his efforts thrown in his face. Extra points when you consider that, as seen in Life is Strange, Chloe NEVER did warm up to him (and things got even worse between them), but through it all, David was, in his own way, trying to protect her and the Blackwell kids and indeed saw her as a daughter despite his inability to show it, as he proves when he goes APESHIT on Jefferson for killing her. For any stepfather, it can be sad that, no matter your intentions, despite your best efforts, your stepdaughter hates your guts.
  • Worse, even if Chloe tries to reciprocate his efforts, such as thanking him for the ride to school, David's own prejudices makes him unable to take it for face value. This only drives home how doomed David and Chloe's relationship was from the get go and helps explain why things later escalated between them.
• Chloe's insistent to Rachel that with Max gone, she doesn't have any friends. This is despite her pleasant relationships with Mikey, Steph, Samantha, Justin, and Eliot. She does have friends, she's just too blinded by the grief of losing her father and Max to realize that these five people genuinely like being around her. It's sad to see that her isolation is largely self-invoked and she's just in too much pain to realize it.
  • Although in the case of Eliot, it turns out it's a good thing she's kept him at bay.

Episode 2 - "Brave New World"

• Chloe must undertake a Backtalk challenge in order to get past Skip and into the dorms. Succeed and Skip will allow her to pass after he is called away. Fail the challenge and while Chloe will still be allowed to pass, Skip will deliver a bitter and heartbreaking speech on how he is pissed off at the fact that she and all of her classmates have constantly exploited him and his authority to get what they want. After Wells calls him on the radio, Skip tells him to go fuck himself and essentially quits his job on the spot.
• Joyce in general. Her behavior and texts make it very clear she cares deeply about her daughter and tries to help Chloe as best as she can, but she keeps botching it due to her inability to see how harmful David's presence is for Chloe. In episode 2, her voice and facial expressions during the scenes she's in betray her desperation and sadness over the situation. Props go to her voice actress for conveying these emotions in a heartbreaking way.
  Joyce: "Chloe, can't you just forget about David for a second? Think about me."
  Chloe: "Maybe I just need some space, okay?"
  Joyce: "Maybe I just need my daughter back."
• When Chloe goes to clean out her locker she can take an old picture of her cat, Bongo, whom her dad rescued from an animal shelter only for Bongo to die by getting run over. The bitterness in Chloe's voice is very stark and it's just more evidence of all the things she's lost in life.
• If Chloe does not tell Samantha to encourage Nathan before the play, Nathan will flub his lines and start crying on the stage. Worse, the audience will mock him for it. This is doubly depressing because his cruel father warned him to not to look like a fool, lest it would damage his reputation. Poor kid...
• During the dream, looking at William prompts Chloe to say tearfully, "I miss him, so much."
• In the event that Chloe doesn't rebut Rachel taking all the blame for them playing hooky in the opening scene, she can backtalk Victoria into giving up the part of Prospera. If she succeeds, Victoria admits that she really couldn't play the part, that she doesn't know the lines or understand the play and didn't expect to actually end up on stage.

Episode 3 - "Hell Is Empty"

• Regardless of what you do, the beginning of the first game is still canon. No matter what you do here, Rachel will still end up in the Dark Room. Likewise, Nathan's condition, regardless of if you've tried to help him and facilitate a positive relationship between him and Samantha, will go untreated and he'll become the violent and deranged young man we know from the main game due to his father's neglect. As such, he ends up being manipulated into becoming a kidnapper and killer by Jefferson... leading directly to Rachel's death.
  • Trying to facilitate friendships between other characters and Chloe becomes this due to the fact that none of these people, save Justin, are present in the main game. This implies a few things, the major one being that Chloe was so focused on her and Rachel's relationship that she never makes an attempt to contact the North brothers, Steph, or Samantha after episode three. Or she possibly shuts them out and isolated herself after Rachel's disappearance. Regardless, with the exception of Justin, she stops seeing them at some point and ends up alone again until Max appears... After which it's possible that she dies alone on a cold bathroom floor from a gunshot wound.
  • Even her friendship with Justin is kind of sad in light of this game. Not only does she seemingly lose the North brothers, Steph and Samantha as friends at some point over three years but her bond with Justin in the main game really isn't that strong and he canonically gets so stoned that he forgets her name if she isn't present by that point.
• Chloe's first dream sequence with William, which consists of a reenactment of the accident that claimed his life on the Blackwell stage (complete with an uncaring audience watching). It ends with William being struck by a truck, leaving behind a trail of blood. Say what you will about Rhianna De Vries, but the way Chloe screams, "DAD!" as she witnesses the carnage really drives home haunted Chloe is by the death of her father and how broken she truly is inside.
• The scene where David attempts to apologize to Chloe and tell her about his own experiences with loss and grief. The story of his good friend Phil Becker, who died during their last mission, is a reminder that David, for all of his many flaws, is quite the broken man himself. Turning down the photo leaves him stammering, almost as if he could break down at any moment.
• When Chloe brings Rachel to the hospital, she meets with James. Their conversation shows that Chloe is beat up about the situation being her fault, because she organized the meeting with Frank, not counting that he would bring Damon with him. Also because after she uttered Rachel's name, Damon realized who she was, and that was the point when things started to go downhill. Even James' reassurance that it wasn't her fault doesn't comfort her much.
• It's easy to miss, but walking all the way down the hospital hallway up to the door that is ajar allows you to pick up on a conversation between Sean Prescott (Nathan's father) and a psychiatrist. The latter will attempt Sean to get his son the psychological treatment he needs to overcome his worsening mental issues, but Sean will flat out refuse this. Nathan's father's neglect and prioritizing of the family's pride over his son's mental health will ultimately lead the latter down a dark path in the first game, and much of that could have perhaps been avoided.
  • Becomes worse if Samantha is friendly towards Nathan at the end, being perhaps the most kind-hearted person to take an interest in him. The two can be seen reading together under a tree during the ending, but somewhere along the line Nathan's worsening mental state will drive a wedge between that budding friendship as in the first game, Samantha does not seem to be in Nathan's life anymore.
  • It's possible for Samantha and Nathan's relationship to deteriorate in this game, despite Samantha's attempts to reach out to Nathan. One of the potential conversations in the hospital involves an argument between Samantha's mom and Sean Prescott, which reveals Nathan broke Samantha's ribs. Sean dismisses her by saying that Nathan was protecting himself from unwanted advances.
  • If Mikey ends up in the hospital after being assaulted by Damon, he and Chloe can play another tabletop game where she has to convince Mikey to sacrifice her to save himself. While it's not tearjerking on its own, the conversation is massively Harsher in Hindsight when one considers how Chloe would later have to make the same argument to Max for real.
• As obsessive and demented as Eliot turns out to be, Chloe does seem to regret things turned out this way with him. Should you fail the "Backtalk" challenge, when he accuses her of trying to knock him out, she tells him, "No! You idiot," in a sorry tone, not sounding like her usual brash self (though she does resume the attitude right after). As much of a psycho as he was being with her, he was still one of her friends and she had to witness his descent into madness.
  • Worse, Eliot mentions her dad's death and Max. Drives home how truly entitled he has become if he's willing to bring out things Chloe opened up to him about to guilt her into listening to him.
• Chloe imagining her dad being with her and having a conversation with him before driving up the burned out Mill for the the final confrontation with Damon. She'll ask him if he ever lied to her, and he will ask her if she would love him any less if that had been the case. If you ultimately ask him for a direct answer to the first question, he'll say he simply does not know, because he's dead. The whole scene is a painful reminder that all of the dream sequences and imaginary conversations with William are just made up by Chloe's mind. Her dad is gone and won't ever talk to her again.
• A small moment from the montage ending of Episode 3: the look on Frank's face as he looks at the photo of him and Damon together. From the expression on the face, you get the impression that he and Frank really did use to be friends and that Frank is hurt that their friendship ended with Damon attempting to kill him.
  • Additionally, the fresh dirt and shovel in the background of that scene, suggesting that Frank buried Damon.
  • Furthermore, Frank pours one out for Damon as the scene fades.
• Episode 3 ends on a pretty idyllic note with a montage of the happy time Chloe and Rachel spend together.. then suddenly the music cuts out and we see a short view into the day Rachel was drugged and killed.
• Chloe's final journal letter to Max, where she finally accepts that Max won't be coming back and cuts her ties with her memories of her, saying she wants to live in the present with Rachel.
• Telling Rachel the truth about what her father did to Sera. Though the player is warned that telling Rachel the truth will destroy her family, it can still be heartbreaking watching the Amber family break apart after Rachel finally started mending her relationship with her dad.
• During the scene where Chloe visits Rachel at the hospital, after meeting Sera, Rachel asks a simple question: "We never escaped... did we?". Except it's less of a question and more of a somber realization. If you've already played the original Life is Strange, it doubles as a massive gut punch when Chloe answers, "Eventually." since the player already knows how it ends for them.

Bonus Episode - "Farewell"

• Chloe and Max promise each other to stay in contact and to be friends forever, but the player knows this isn't gonna happen - Max and Chloe will soon lose contact, for years.
• Chloe and Max spend a last fun day together. Then, the door opens to Joyce and a police officer - yes, it's THAT day, and nothing will ever be the same.
  • If you look around the kitchen, you can find the picture of Max and Chloe that Max used to travel back in time to this day with, setting up for that moment a while before it hits.
• Max' recorded promise at the end to always be there for Chloe, which causes Chloe to break down in tears and hug the cassette player, is extra sad because we know this is not what happens - Max will soon stop writing and essentially abandon Chloe in her worst time.
• Chloe and Max never got a chance to say a proper "Goodbye" since their last fun day together was ruined and Max had to leave during the funeral, leaving Chloe broken, vulnerable and alone.
• Max and Chloe spend most of the episode following the leads they set up years ago to find the "treasure" which turns out to be a time capsule, with some drawings, toys, and letters their younger selves left for each other.. If this isn't emotional enough, we find out William took the time to dig it up and put it in a protective container so it'd be properly preserved...and left a tape recording, in character as a pirate, telling them he's proud of both of them.. At first glance, this is a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, but soon falls straight into Tearjerker territory when you realize these are William's last words to Chloe...
• Seeing the destruction of all the plans the Price family had for future - William was promoted and planned to paint the house, Joyce wanted to quit smoking and become a teacher, and the whole family was planning to go Arizona on a trip. All of that gone in the blink of an eye.
• The episode lets you examine every nook and cranny in the Price household and Chloe's bedroom, and almost everything has some memory attached to it or elicits a reaction or thought. Even looking at Chloe gets Max to think about her or even tell her how much she loves her. For Max, this isn't just any other day at Chloe's house, it's probably the last day she'll spend at the place where she's spent much of her life with her best friend, and for all she knows, it's the very last look she'll get to take at everything...including Chloe.
• During the funeral, Joyce reaches out to try to put her hand on Chloe's shoulder, but Chloe moves away.
• Chloe did her best and got into Blackwell... but was bullied for being a "scholarship kid." Small wonder she got herself kicked out...
• Max has trouble to break the news that she will move. If she tries to tell it right away, Chloe distracts her with the pirate treasure and if Max tells her the next time the occasion presents, Chloe admits she knows- their parents talked about it even though Max's parents agreed Max should be the one to break it to Chloe. Max then either asks why Chloe pretended to not know or continues to blame herself for not being upfront right away.