[DE] What if Safi is manipulating Max and Chloe’s relationship?

Please read until the end before saying that it's impossible.

The new game has sparked a lot of debate, and people are often blaming the writers for some pretty strange decisions. But what if we took a step back and looked at it from a different angle? What if all of this is actually pieces of a bigger puzzle, and the answer is right there on the surface? You don’t even need to dig that deep. What if Safi, with her ability to manipulate memory and perception, is the one behind all these strange events?

There’s a common belief that the developers want to get rid of Chloe as a character, but then why does Max constantly remember her throughout the game? If the developers really wanted to remove this character, they would have simply avoided bringing her up. Why make a large portion of the fanbase upset? It's often said that the developers don’t really know this character, which is why there are so many mistakes and inconsistencies. But what if these “mistakes” aren’t from the writers (who, by the way, are responsible for creating "Before the Storm")? What if these inconsistencies are the result of Safi's manipulation of reality and how she alters perception? If that’s the case, it starts to make sense. She created the reality the way she could, based on the information she had.

The break between Max and Chloe completely contradicts logic. Chloe is the person Max once sacrificed an entire city for, so it’s hard to imagine their paths simply splitting. But what if Safi affected Max’s perception, altering her memories of Chloe or her feelings toward her? Could she have done the same thing with Chloe? And so both of them live with the belief that the breakup was initiated by the other (with letter, lol?). Why would Safi do this? Max needs to be part of her "Avengers squad," and Chloe would just get in the way. And look how convenient that is - in one version, Chloe is dead, and Max is already trapped, because in her memories, Chloe has been dead for a long time. In the other version, the breakup happened because of Chloe. If the memories were that Max wanted to break up, there’d be a chance she might want to fix things, considering how much Max thinks about Chloe.

I’ve thought about this before, but what really convinced me that these inconsistencies aren’t accidental is the letter from Chloe, stamped with a 2022 date, while the game takes place in 2023. Max comments that "even years later this still sucks to read," which could suggest some distortion of time perception, maybe under Safi’s influence. What if this isn’t a mistake from the writers? The artist who drew the letter with that stamp must have had specific instructions. It’s definitely not just a random choice. What if the letter really was from 2022, and Safi sent it that year when she met Max and decided to break up their relationship? Also, in Chloe’s social media, she doesn’t post photos and she even communicates with Victoria, which is strange. Could two such characters have found common ground? Well, maybe... But this is just one of many moments where Chloe acts completely out of character. Could it be that this social media isn’t even Chloe’s? A fake page, to make the story Safi wants Max to believe even more convincing?

Another interesting moment is when Safi asks Max about the photo of Chloe that she keeps in her wallet. Max is surprised how Safi could know about it and asks if she’s been snooping in her wallet. Why does Safi ask this? Maybe she wants to make sure what kind of memories Max has of Chloe. And it doesn’t matter whether the memories are of Chloe’s death or of their time together before they broke up. What if something happened in 2022 that we haven’t seen yet? Maybe Safi wants to be sure Max is fully under her control now.

The more I think about this, the more it makes sense to me, and I can’t shake the feeling. In any case, it makes more sense than the idea that the developers want to move on and erase such an important character, but still leave tons of references to her.

If this theory turns out to be true, then the real question is — was it worth the risk? Low ratings, fans' frustration, hate towards the studio and publisher... Negative PR is a risky move. But yeah, the game is definitely on everyone’s radar, and it’s stirred up a lot of fans who haven’t touched the Life is Strange series in years.