The game that started it all reaches a significant milestone
Since its initial release, the original Life is Strange has surpassed 20 million players worldwide.
The official Life is Strange Twitter account celebrated Thanksgiving earlier today, November 23, by expressing gratitude for the original game’s 20 million total players. “We want to thank each and every one of you for playing,” the X post stated.
It’s a little unclear what constitutes a “player” in the first Life is Strange game. Is Dontnod counting all of the players who appeared in each episode of the five-episode series, or only those who appeared in all five episodes?
Regardless of how the developers counted it, it’s a huge milestone for the original narrative-driven game. Life is Strange was released throughout 2015 (it’s hard to believe it’s nearly ten years old), with Episode One arriving in January and Episode Five concluding the series in October.
According to Square Enix, originally reported by Polygon, Life is Strange had one million players and one million copies sold that same year. According to GamesIndustry.biz, it reached three million unique players two years later in 2017, implying that there has been a significant increase in the number of players for the original game over the last six years.
For the rest of the series, Square Enix has been strangely secretive about sales and player figures – it’s never given player counts for Before the Storm, Life is Strange 2, or True Colors in the years since their releases. At the very least, we know the original game was a smash hit in the eight years since it was released.