Life is Strange: Before the Storm, the three-part prequel to the original Life is Strange ported to Linux by Feral Interactive is now available. After very much enjoying the first game, I had been eagerly awaiting this one to come out.
While the original was made by DONTNOD Entertainment, this time around it was developed by Deck Nine and published by Square Enix.
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About the game:
Life is Strange: Before the Storm is a new three part; standalone adventure set three years before the first game in the BAFTA award-winning franchise.
You play as sixteen-year old Chloe Price who forms an unlikely friendship with Rachel Amber, a beautiful and popular girl destined for success.
When Rachel learns a secret about her family that threatens to destroy her world, it is her newfound friendship with Chloe that gives her the strength to carry on.
No longer alone the girls must confront each other's demons and together, find a way to overcome them.
The Linux release also has the bonus episode, "Farewell", which is included in the Deluxe Edition. This bonus episode follows Max (from the original) and Chloe’s childhood friendship.
Minimum System Requirements - As a reminder, this latest port uses OpenGL and not Vulkan:
- OS: Ubuntu 18.04
- Processor: Intel Core i3-4130T @ 2.90GHz
- GPU: 2GB Nvidia GTX 680 or 2GB AMD R9 270 or better
- System RAM: 4GB
- Storage: 28GB
AMD GPUs require Mesa driver 18.1.6 at least and NVIDIA GPUs require driver at least 396.54. They said that Intel GPUs are not supported.
Much like the original, it's choice driven and your choices will affect the story in a few ways including giving you a different ending. The soundtrack in the original really was great and helped the experience so knowing BtS has another great soundtrack had me excited.
There's no time manipulation mechanic here though, instead you get a "Backtalk" feature, with a risk/reward conversation mode. Your outfit will also change how people react to you too, according to the feature list.
Like all recent Feral ports, it includes their handy launcher customised to fit in with the theme of the game which is always a really nice touch. Although, this is the first time it hasn't include an option to pick you monitor. With it being a Unity game, their launcher probably isn't compatible with how Unity handles that.
As expected from Feral, the Linux port is excellent in terms of quality. Testing on Ubuntu 18.04 with my Intel i7-5960X paired with an NVIDIA 980ti, with the settings cranked up to "Hella High" (maximum) to hear my GPU purr and it's smoother than silk. High frame rates, no stutter—exactly what we want in a Linux port and it shows how Feral's effort has truly paid off for this one.
Seriously, through all of the episodes the performance has been absolutely outstanding. We couldn't really ask for any better here, I've not had a single problem with it.
It's certainly a bit weird with it being a prequel, since we know what comes after but exploring who Chloe is and how things got that way is actually quite interesting. I'm already a pretty big fan of the dialogue system, getting to insult everyone is quite amusing.
The new voice actor actually does a really great job, it's always hard to fill empty shoes but Rhianna DeVries actually did a fantastic job at keeping the same Chloe attitude that we know and love.
If you enjoyed the original Life is Strange, this will very much be your thing. Since it's so similar in many ways with the presentation and the atmosphere although it does feel quite different overall. It's a bit of an emotional roller coaster that's for sure and it does a good job at expanding a lot of the background details many were curious about from the original.
Since it's built in the Unity game engine, some may wonder why it was ported by Feral externally and not just done by Deck Nine and Square Enix directly. The key thing to remember, is that Unity is not a simple push of a button for larger games. This is especially true when you take into account middle-ware that doesn't support Linux or has major issues on Linux, Unity engine specific issues, ongoing support costs and so on. So, it's the same as all Feral Interactive ports as they handle it all for them and do a good job of it making Linux gamers happy.
For those who prefer to watch such games and get into the spirit of things with the larger community, we will have a livestream of it tonight, so be sure to follow us on Twitch.
You can pick up a copy of Life is Strange: Before the Storm right now from the Humble Store, Feral Store or Steam.
With Life is Strange 2 due out for Windows in September, let's hope Feral Interactive will continue the series on Linux if this sells well enough for them. They're definitely going to need to work on the delay from Windows release to Linux port though, considering the last episode of Before the Storm released back in December last year.
Feral have ported well over 20 major titles to Linux now, so it's really great to see even more. When we spoke to them for our thoughts on Valve's Steam Play, they clearly said their future plans haven't changed. They've already released Rise of the Tomb Raider and Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia this year along with Total War: WARHAMMER II still to come as well as another teaser.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I'm unsure about what the best order to play them is, though. With this game first, at least you don't yet know that a certain character's death is a forgone conclusion? On the other hand, it might hit you worse.
What hit me the hardest is how actually good all these people are. Well, almost all of them. And they still can't find a common language because indeed life is so very strange. I understood the views of Chloe's parents and her own and I see why they're always fighting. And still I so want them to be at peace, together, it's even more desirable after the events of the first game when you get to know them better. This looks like a war with no winners at all, no one is at fault and that's why it's so sad.
Another strong moment (in a spoiler because it only works when you encounter it unprepared):
Spoiler, click me
A good parallel with the first game is the cataclysm event unfolding in the background. There are theories that Rachel might have posessed a supernatural power but it's not mentioned in the game. However, you can overhear some info which implies that.
The Rachel's robotic family is surely a letdown. I'm not sure if that's made on purpose or just bad voice acting and animations slipped through QA. Looks too unnatural compared to the rest of the game. Oh well, that was a great emotional rollercoaster anyway. Thanks Deck Nine, thanks Feral! The Chloe's house will be missed as it became my house as well. I can close my eyes and see her room with plenty of details like I actually lived there for a long time. And that means you, the developers, absolutely succeeded in you mission!
Now I only worry about LiS2 because as many others I'm not sure the story without girls among the main characters will be any exciting (read: oxytocin inducing). It might be intersting, adventurous, have plot twists and cliffhangers buuuuuut without "chemistry" between the characters it's not what I call exciting. And the last thing I want to see is that sort of chemistry between the brothers. Not my cup of tea, sorry.
Absolutely this. While knowing the murderer might spoil a little bit, it's not that important. The ride is much more valuable than the end goal. I remember myself when this had been revealed, I was like "huh? So that's it, ok". I don't remember caring that much about the murderer, it's always obvious it's someone you already know (or else what's the point of mystery). Could've been much more shocking if that was another character you really care about. Then these spoilers would kill a lot of game's value but it's not the case here. Go and play it!I didn't play the first game and now I don't need to play this, because I know who is the murderer..
So, if someday I want to play this franchise, the order is: THIS game first and the other game later.
So uh..
I didn't play the first game and now I don't need to play this, because I know who is the murderer..
This isn't a murder mystery. So you don't actually know what happened. Play the games and enjoy. They are a real treat.
After contacting Feral support because the game was not starting on my SteamOS, here is Feral's reply:
Hi Jonathan,
Thank you for contacting us.
I'm afraid this game is not supported on SteamOS.
Please could you send us some more information about your system setup? You can find the system information through Steam > Help > System Information.
Once we have more information we can look into the issue further.
Best regards,
Sam Gardener
Feral Interactive Support
http://support.feralinteractive.com
...
I'm afraid this game is not supported on SteamOS.
That's a surprise to me, too. But then, Feral is very supportive on non-supported distributions as well.
Comandante Ñoñardo Sep 18, 2018
I'm afraid this game is not supported on SteamOS.
That's super weird!... Not supporting the Valve's OS, considering that they have a marriage with Valve..
Is this a sign of a future breakup?
Comandante Ñoñardo Sep 21, 2018
So an update patch is coming...
If you don't examine the items the game loads just fine.
This did not help me...
I reported the issue to Feral. I managed to get past the crash by turning all the games settings down to minimum and putting it into windowed mode instead of full-screen.
... this did.
From the stacktrace, it must be something wrong with resource deallocation. The crash happens in the multimap destructor. So if you turn the settings down the game might not load or use the offending DeferredSkinningOperation (which probably means "animation" ). The good thing is that if this is fixed, the Windows players would also benefit. I'd like to read about this issue if Feral solve it.
Maybe it's a texture you either shouldn't look at or that should be loaded low-res...
Game refunded, they should change that "Out now for MacOS and Linux" to "Out now for MAcOS and Ubuntu"...
It works fine on my Gentoo box.
Game refunded, they should change that "Out now for MacOS and Linux" to "Out now for MAcOS and Ubuntu"...
It works fine on my Gentoo box.
... on my Debian as well, no problems (except the place where Windows is having troubles, too).
Last edited by Eike on 25 September 2018 at 11:07 am UTC
The game has just been updated, could that be the bugfix? Eike, can you test it?
I don't know how, I's not like the game is having save slots. And I wouldn't want to play through whole episode two again at the moment. Sorry.
If you completed the game, there's collector's mode. It allows to play any episode and even choose a starting scene. The only difference is that your choices aren't recorded but we don't need that.The game has just been updated, could that be the bugfix? Eike, can you test it?
I don't know how, I's not like the game is having save slots. And I wouldn't want to play through whole episode two again at the moment. Sorry.
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