Life Is Strange Season 2 Release Date

What is the Life Is Strange Season 2 release date? Everyone’s asking that question, and the short answer is a guess for end January 2016 at the earliest and more realistically Fall 2018, since the official Twitter wasn’t updated in a full year until the May 18th 2017 Season 2 confirmation (and the company said they won’t be at E3 2017 on June 13). UPDATE: THE CONFIRMED RELEASE DATE IS SEPTEMBER 27TH 2018! 😀

Now let’s go over the Season 2 rumors and we’ll update this page once they get confirmed! – Note that Life Is Strange sold over 1 million copies by the end of July 2015 and 3 million copies by May 2017, so with its huge popularity OF COURSE there WILL be a SEASON 2 when it’s ready (as Dontnod’s founder said in a recent interview). Another hint we’re actually getting a Season 2 is obviously the open ending that concluded Season 1! So please share your Season 2 ideas in the comments!


Take a look at how the final episode of Season 1 plays out with both endings here:

Life Is Strange Season 2 Release Date

We are guesstimating Q1 2018 as the release period of Season 2’s first episode!

Why? Because Season 1 made its debut on January 30th, 2015 and it took a full two months before the next episode got released. At that point the original 6-8 week development window per Episode was thrown out the window in favor of giving us more polished future Episodes of Life Is Strange. After Episode 2 the studio settled on a 9-10 week dev cycle per Episode for the series, they announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2015.

As a result we expect the developers to take a lot more time to work on the first few episodes of Season 2, so that they won’t have to rush them out the door — or better yet shorten the time between episodes for the fans — with more preparation having been done before the first episode debuts in a tentative January-March 2018 period.

More realistically (as a game producer, Ely, puts it) Season 2 may take a full year of pre-production.
To quote: “The difference with a new season is that it will take literally a year to develop the common assets shared between episodes. When they make episode 2/3/4, they’re mostly recycling the same props, locations and characters. A new season would be new locales, people, plots and items and would need a lot more asset pre-production.”

This would mean Season 2 gets to keep the same schedule as Season 1, even if it’s as late as Spring 2018, which is what most episodic series seem to aim for. Delays notwithstanding.

Life Is Strange fanart gallery:

Click on a thumbnail in the gallery below for big artwork.


What are the hints for Season 2?

Season 1 Open Ending:

The lighthouse “Cliff” endings give you the choice to decide to sacrifice Chloe and save the town or not do that, if you do let Chloe die, it ends with Chloe being buried as Max sees a blue butterfly fly by and land on her coffin. Max smiles in the ending shot, knowing she made the right choice to save many lives over the one. Supposedly this is the “good” ending.

However, there’s a second “Cliff” ending! If you decide to sacrifice Arcadia Bay and save Chloe’s life, the pair live and end up leaving Arcadia Bay together by car. What will be next for them? Is Chloe cursed to die Final Destination-style and will the storm keep chasing them until Max has undone the butterfly effect? Only TIME will tell!

Watch the open ending from “Episode 5: Polarized” to see both Max & Chloe drive off on a “road trip”:

Quotes from the developers:

Community manager Scott Blows asks your questions to the DONTNOD developers, where they answered everything about the Life Is Strange series live from the E3 2015 show. Watch the 50-minutes-long Q&A below.

Get a behind-the-scenes look at in a new video that shows how they make the Episodes.

DONTNOD Entertainment recently visited BAFTA, London, where they spoke in detail about Life Is Strange in the ongoing ‘BAFTA Showcase’ series. — In the video Michel Koch (Co-Game Director), Raoul Barbet (Co-Game Director), Luc Baghadoust (Producer) and Alejandro Arque Gallardo (Designer, Square-Enix) share their design philosophies and reveal the intricate network of choices and consequences running in the background that determine the content of future scenes and events for the player.

Fun tidbit: Could we be hearing Max sing in future episodes?

Hannah Telle — the American voice actor for Maxine “Max” Caulfield in Life Is Strange — has made a cover of Life is Strange’s “Obstacles” song by Syd Matters!

Update November 6, 2015: In an interview with French website Alchimy.info, Alain Damasio — Life is Strange’s Script Doctor & developer Dontnod’s founder — has confirmed he’ll be working on Life is Strange Season 2!!!!

Question: “Do you have any other video game projects after Remember Me?”
Answer: “We were supposed to make a [Remember Me] 2 but it doesn’t work with Capcom. I worked as a Script Doctor on Life is Strange, a game developed by Dontnod, and I will participate in the follow up, Life is Strange 2.

Since word got out about this unintentional confirmation of Life is Strange Season 2, the article writer has retracted the statement (on the developer’s request?) to instead say “if there is a follow up” at the end of his quote.

So there you have it! Official backpedaling on a Season 2 confirmation, why would they go through all that trouble unless they were working on it. I love it when a denial (instead of a no comment) becomes the confirmation, it’s just so obvious developer Dontnod want to announce Season 2 themselves when they are good and ready.

Update April 21, 2016: Michel Koch and Luc Baghadoust from developer DONTNOD answered fan questions about Season 1.

Q&A Timeline:
00:03 – How did you pick the music and songs for specific scenes?
02:00 – Is there an artist or song you didn’t manage to include, but would have liked to?
03:05 – Is there an artist or song you could recommend fans check out?
04:22 – What kind of influences did you draw from?
05:20 – Were there any scenes or parts of the story that were cut?
09:07 – What were the main things you looked for when casting characters?
13:40 – Did Chloe change very much during development?
16:00 – Was there ever a third or a different main character?
17:44 – What would you add to the game if you had unlimited resources?
21:23 – How did you pick what issues to focus on in Life is Strange?

Update April 23, 2017: After almost a year of no updates on the official Life Is Strange Twitter account, we’ve had to update the article’s timetable forward by a year. Unless there’s a surprise Season 2 announcement at the E3 2017 show on June 13th, we’re looking at a Spring 2018 release at the earliest. Either the studio has taken an extra year of development time or they’ve had their hands full with the Q4 2017 release of their upcoming action-RPG Vampyr.

Update May 18, 2017: We all knew it was in development, but Dontnod finally confirmed they are working on “a new Life Is Strange game.” Here’s what they said about Life Is Strange Season 2 in written word and on video…

To quote the creators: “If you’re reading this, you’ve likely already heard or watched the news… we reached over 3 million unique paying players! It’s an incredible achievement and one we could not have reached without you, our fantastic community! You helped spread positive words about our game and have continually kept the world interested in what happens next.

We also revealed a key piece of information that many of you have been waiting some time for now – we can indeed confirm that the original Life is Strange team at DONTNOD are working on a brand new Life is Strange game. We can’t wait to tell you all about it when the time is right, but for now we are hard at work ensuring it is the very best game we can create. We’re really thankful for your patience thus far and ask for a bit more time. The new game will not be at E3 in June this year but we will be watching the show alongside you all and wish everyone good luck!”

The video confirmation: “As a thank you to the over 3 million of you who bought our game, we’d like to share some special news with you…”

Update June 12, 2017: While we wait for Season 2 in 2018, a 3-episode-prequel was announced for 2017 at E3 2017 with a trailer.

To quote: “Life is Strange: Before the Storm is a new three part standalone story adventure set three years before the events of the first game. This time play as Chloe Price, a rebel who forms an unlikely friendship with Rachel Amber in dramatic new story in the BAFTA award winning franchise. – Life is Strange: Before the Storm Episode 1 releases August 31, 2017 on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC (Steam).”

Update March 5, 2018: On the DONTNOD Blog the developers of Before the Storm talked about finishing that series and hinted at Life is Strange’s Season 2 debut coming in the next few months. This would like coincide with a reveal trailer due in June 2018 during the E3 2018 show.

To quote: “But when a door closes, a window opens… or, something like that. We now look forward to the coming months, when Michel Koch and Raoul Barbet’s team at DONTNOD returns to present the new story and characters of the next Life is Strange. Until then, Farewell!”

Update June 23, 2018: Episode 1 of 5 from Life is Strange 2 will be available on September 27th 2018.
Further information about DONTNOD’s Life is Strange 2 will be revealed this August.

Any future project updates will be added in this section.

Video credits: Square Enix, Doug & Hannah Telle

Who do you want to see in Life Is Strange Season 2?