I know I’m a few years late on this, but I have a complaint about the ending of “Life is Strange: Before the Storm“. (I was replaying the original, and realized I’d never played this prequel, as part of getting hype for next month’s “LIfe is Strange: Double Exposure.” Yes, I pre-ordered it, including the ridiculous overpriced bonus cat content in the Ultra Deluxe Hyper Fighting Edition.) Needless to say, there will be spoilers…

For the benefit of spoiler protection, here are Max and Chloe from “Life is Strange.”

Super quick summary, which in and of itself isn’t all that spoilery: “Life is Strange”, released in 2015 (with a somewhat gratuitous remaster in 2022), tells the story of Max Caulfield, a high school senior with totally relatable teen troubles like “time travel” and “alternate realities.” Max’s bestie, Chloe, was an interesting character on her own, so she got a prequel. Hence, the “before” in “before the storm”. (There’s a storm. A literal one, with rain and lightning. Long story, not really relevant.)

BTS (no, not the k-pop group) tells us how Chloe meets, and totally falls for, Rachel, whose mysterious disappearance fuels most of the original game. (This isn’t a spoiler either, you see lots of Missing Person posters for Rachel all over the place, about ten minutes in.) LIS is Max’s story, not Chloe’s, and not Rachel’s. Rachel is a MacGuffin, so the fact that we don’t know all that much about her isn’t a problem.

Out of necessity, though, you can’t talk about Chloe and Rachel’s relationship without, um, talking about Rachel. So in the prequel, Rachel gets parents and backstory and everything. Since Rachel was a cipher for most of the original game, there aren’t really any conflicts or retcons to deal with.

Then I finished BTS, and saw a little ten-second post-credit scene. And here’s where things get a bit spoilery.

This is from, literally, the last shot of BTS. Rachel is in the Dark Room, being photographed by Mark Jefferson and/or Nathan Prescott, before she’s killed and buried in a shallow grave.

The phone is ringing.

This means Rachel’s phone has cell reception.

Rachel’s father is a district attorney. He might not be after BTS – he did some slightly dickish things like trying to have Rachel’s birth mother killed, but it’s not clear how many people actually know about this. (Chloe knows everything, because she’s the player character. Chloe has the choice of telling Rachel, or not, about dad’s shenanigans. Damon’s almost certainly dead, Frank isn’t the sort to snitch, Sera may or may not have skipped town.)

Point is, there’s a very good chance that two years later, when Rachel disappears, that he’s still a district attorney. Even if he isn’t, he’s a smart and well-connected lawyer. If he couldn’t get a subpoena for cell tower records himself, he would know people that could. The Prescott family could probably pull some strings to stop it, but they don’t know about Nathan’s involvement; they wouldn’t really have a reason to block or hinder the investigation. (Yes, the cell records would point to the barn/Dark Room, which they own, but they wouldn’t know that ahead of time.)

Since a couple of teenage Scoobies could find the Dark Room, real honest-to-goodness police, especially with a motivated DA behind them, could find it as well. Even if they don’t actually solve the murder at this point, the barn would be on everyone’s radar. Nathan would be about 90 percent less cocky, knowing how close he and Mark were to getting caught, so he wouldn’t have that gun in the bathroom in October. Max eventually reconnects with Chloe another way, and go on to have somewhat less dangerous, but still adorable, adventures.

All this because of one little post-credits shot. Which, given the whole butterfly effect theme of the game, seems fitting.