Arguably one of the most anticipated games of the year for many players, and especially so for graphic adventure games fans, Life is Strange: True Colors seems to be conceived with its predecessors in mind in terms of supernatural powers and dramatic story. The protagonist is Alex Chen, who decides to finally meet her brother again after eight years apart and is set on moving to Haven Springs, Colorado, where the game is set. The inciting incident is, unfortunately, Gabe's death. Shattered by the unexpected and devastating loss of her brother, Alex finds herself alone in a new place, and she decides to try and understand what happened to Gabe.
In Life is Strange: True Colors, Alex has the power of empathy, which allows her to see the emotions of people around her as colorful auras that appear to share a pattern. Purple auras are for fear, blue ones represent loneliness and sadness, red ones mean anger or other visceral feelings, pink auras stand for love, and yellow ones are for happiness. This aspect of Alex's powers alone bodes very well for how Life is Strange: True Colors can feel like when played on PS5 if paired with a DualSense controller and its haptic and auditory immersive features.
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It should be noted that the developers of Life is Strange: True Colors at Deck Nine Games purposefully made it so that Alex's empathy feels like a double-edged sword when she relates to other people. Empathy is often described as a wholly positive characteristic to have, but Alex's powers and her personal story beg to differ, meaning that the downside can be that she can sometimes feel overwhelmed and as if she was carrying a burden. Specifically, another thing that Alex Chen can do is connect with a person's aura and enter a state that allows her to see fragments of that individual's life, as well as their memories and what they are thinking.
This ability has plenty of gameplay implications, of course, but it could also make Life is Strange: True Colors the perfect candidate to be played on the PS5 because of how the DualSense controller might end up interacting with Alex's powers. For example, the act of reaching out and trying to connect with another person via their aura could be affected by the DualSense's adaptive triggers, especially if that person is somehow trying to resist Alex's powers, applying pressure on the buttons. But that's not all, as the aforementioned color pattern for the auras Alex can see and what they mean could come into play on the DualSense as well.
DualSense controllers have a LED lighting system that features blue lights unless the device is being used with PS4 games, where the lights either change automatically in the case of multiplayer titles, or they can sometimes be changed manually for specific video games. The lights include all of the possible auras in Life is Strange: True Colors, and they could automatically change and adapt based on the aura that Alex is seeing.
Furthermore, the haptic feedback from the DualSense could work when determinant choices are to be made in the game, for example, or triggered based on what happens around Alex. The same goes for 3D audio, meaning Alex could explore a person's psyche or the wilderness around Haven Springs through the guidance of the controller's audio. There are a lot of possibilities for Life is Strange: True Colors and its interactions with the DualSense, and the two will likely make for a great match in terms of player experience.
Life is Strange: True Colors will launch on September 10 for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Stadia, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
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