This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
And here we are: "Dark Room" is undoubtedly, of the 4 episodes (before the final one), the most successful episode. There are not many other ways in which it can be defined. The first and second can hold on to it but inevitably this fourth episode manages to overcome them.
I was worried that Max would had to stay too long in the alternative universe, created in "Chaos Theory", but to my surprise the period in that alternative, distorted, world was as short as intense. Chloe who is not... Chloe. Forced into a bed or a wheelchair without being able to move freely. Her parents are falsely optimistic, but desperate and without money, knowing that the end of their daughter is approaching. Max has altered the past, hoping to change the future for the better, but what she received is probably the strongest punch in the stomach in her life. One last day together, the last moments and memories. Then Chloe's request to Max leads to nothing less than one of the most difficult choices in the game – perhaps, up to this point, the most difficult: euthanizing her with morphine; granting this last favor to her friend, since however she's fated to die, but slowly. I had a bad feeling about this to happen, few minutes before, while I was playing. It was difficult, it's not easy to accept euthanasia – mercy or not, it's not about making a light decision – but I did it in my game run. One of the strongest scenes in the game, no doubt. And then Maxine's decision to put things "right": to sacrifice Chloe's father to regain her friend as was, messed up to the head but at least not paralyzed. Return to the main universe, where things have been "restored": Max's decision not to mention about her drift in the alternative universe is wise. Resumption of the investigation: connect the last dots and clarify the role of Nathan Prescott throughout the story. Rummaging in his room and stealing his cell phone with the necessary information in it. Warren beating up Nathan to defend the girls; Chloe and Max heading to Frank, the drug dealer; Chloe shoots him to the leg to force him to give his ledger – but it could have ended up much worse. Till this point, the episode already was in continuous evolution, yet it was not finished. Nice was the investigative part, where Max has to combine all the clues found during the adventure – in a similar way happened in Cage's Heavy Rain or Fahrenheit – to understand where is the infamous Prescott's "Dark Room". Here too there was an intelligent use Max's power. The place turns out to be a dismal photo set where Rachel, and the suicidal Kate Marsh, have been drugged, tortured and forced into macabre photographic poses to please some madman. And then the discovery that triggers the beginning of the end: Rachel died... long ago. Buried in the dump where she used to gather with Chloe and where this one finds her body, while wriggling and crying. Furious, relentless, Chloe and Maxine head to the campus party to find Nathan: Chloe is no longer afraid to use the revolver, she is determined to kill him. But Nathan is not at the party, Chloe and Max leave while professor Jefferson is awarding the student, Victoria, with the "Everyday Heroes Photo Contest" prize. And here, frankly, once again I had a bad feeling. I admit it, I thought: "Jefferson doesn't convince me. He hides something" right in those moments, don't know why but I felt it. Chloe and Max are attracted to the dump by a Nathan's message, but it's a trap. Maxine is stunned with a drug injected at her back with a syringe and Chloe... gets a bullet in the head, from professor Jefferson in person. Her thirst for revenge and anger, led her to death. And Max, unable to rewind time, faints slowly while seeing her best friend dying in front of her eyes... after she saved her, days back, in this universe, and then euthanized her in another one.
A last-breath succession of shocking and important events, with a good plot twist and quite beyond suspicion – even though I had two presentiments. What to say? Nothing, except that it was excellent. Wanting to make a significant comparison with one of the biggest – maybe the biggest – TV series of all time, we can say that "Episode 4 - Dark Room" represents for Life is Strange, what "S5, Ep.14 - Ozymandias" represents for Breaking Bad.
Now all that remains is to make and close everything in a ultimate final episode, and do it as it should be, in the best way possible.… Expand
