Life is Strange Remastered shows off six minutes of enhanced gameplay footage
All Maxed out.
Following a fairly significant delay last September, Life is Strange: Remastered Collection is finally almost upon us, and, in preparation for its February release, publisher Square Enix has shared the first significant gameplay footage of its freshly spruced-up Life is Strange 1.
Square Enix's Life is Strange: Remastered Collection bundles up the original Life is Strange alongside its prequel Before the Storm, with both games set to receive enhanced visuals for characters and environments, alongside engine and lighting upgrades, as part of the release.
The remastering work on the first game will, however, go a little bit further, introducing fully motion-captured facial animations to remedy one particularly notable weakness of developer Dontnod's otherwise fondly remembered title - and all of these changes have now received a fairly substantial showcase in Square's latest video below.
The sequence featured comes extremely early in Life is Strange 1's first episode, titled Chrysalis, but if you're not at all familiar with the game's core premise and want to remain completely unsullied before playing, do be aware that the trailer concludes with a significant reveal.
The overall effect of the remaster's changes is definitely subtle, not immediately helped by the fact Square hasn't offered any kind of side-by-side comparison for this particular new gameplay video, but a quick flick through the original sequence reveals some notable differences, with elements like improved hair for Max, better lip-syncing, and more detailed environmental textures and effects helping to give the game a bit of a presentational nudge forward.
The remaster's enhancements are more readily comparable in a second sequence shared by Square Enix, this one showcasing a slightly later scene in which Max hangs out with her friend Chloe. Perhaps the most striking element here is the improved facial animations withIn addition to the various technological enhancements coming as part of the Life is Strange Remastered Collection, Square previously confirmed Before the Storm will include all the content featured in its original Deluxe edition - namely a range of outfits and its Chloe-Max reunion episode Farewell.
Life is Strange Remastered launches for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation on 1st February. However, the Switch version, recently delayed a second time, is now expected to arrive "later this year".