Life Is Strange Endures a Decade Later Thanks To Its Music

By Willa Rowe | October 23, 2025 | 3:04pm

Video Games Features life is strange

Life Is Strange Endures a Decade Later Thanks To Its Music

It feels almost criminal that even a decade after its release, the most enduring moment from Life is Strange (at least in my mind) comes in the first 10 minutes of the very first episode. If you know Life is Strange you’ll know it well. Max Caufield—whom we just met—exits her classroom into the hallways of Blackwell Academy, leans against a wall, pops in her earbuds, and walks past a pastiche of American high school. It’s a moment made by its use of music; the song that plays in Max’s ears (and which is also projected for us to hear) is “To All of You” by Syd Matters, and it tells us everything we as the player will need to know about the story we are about to experience.

In many ways, Life is Strange is a game that does not exist without that first use of licensed music. Developer Don’t Nod Entertainment, in the earliest stages of development, used “To All of You” (and other Syd Matters songs) as a way to help “define the mood” of the game, according to a Red Bull interview with producer Luc Baghadoust. It is an intrinsic part of the DNA that makes up Life is Strange. It was only natural then that Don’t Nod would ask Syd Matters frontman Jonathan Morali for use of the band’s songs, who would then agree to compose an original score for the game as well.

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But what exactly is it that makes that moment when “To All of You” plays so spectacular? It essentially serves as the musical theme for Life is Strange, introducing the player to the conflicts and characters of Arcadia Bay. The song, written a decade before Life is Strange was released, is about the misguided glorification and sometimes objectification of Americana seen in film, specifically focused on the idea of the “american girl.” There is a melancholic sense of nostalgia for something that doesn’t quite exist.

Life is Strange is a game that so clearly deals in nostalgia and homage to media that plays into the picture of Americana sung about in “To All of You.” With its Pacific Northwest setting, narrative sparked by the death of a high school girl, and magical realism, Twin Peaks clearly comes to mind as a major influence, but it’s not the only media the game draws on. Over the top teen dramas like The O.C. leave their mark on Life is Strange’s sometimes equally over the top script. Is it a coincidence that “To All of You” also appeared in that TV show’s third season? Who’s to say.

On a character level the song serves as the first real introduction we get to Max as our protagonist. She is, and this is saying something for a game from 2015, a perfect cliche of the tortured but talented indie loner girl. “To All of You” is an almost acoustic, introspective song filled with yearning—or, in other words, the type of song a teenager listens to to feel like they are the main character of their own movie. It might be a little cringe, but we’ve all done it, and at least Max does happen to be the protagonist of this particular story.

On a macro scale, “To All of You” does end up serving as a summary of the lessons of Life is Strange. With her ability to reverse time (if only a little) and change the course of events Max often sits in the past, almost too paralyzed by indecision and a fear of the future. It’s a trap that also plagues those bound by nostalgia for something gone, something that maybe never existed at all. Be it the loss of a person or just the loss of your teenage self as adulthood looms, the lesson is that choosing (no matter the choice) is better than not making a choice at all. “To All of You”’s obsession with a false nostalgia for some version of mythic Americana sounds so melancholic because it is an inevitably sad thing to get lost in that fictional past.

This is a tool Life is Strange continues to implement throughout its five episodes. Music is used as a shorthand for character introduction, character development, and often as the scaffolding holding up the game’s most emotional moments. Such is the case for Chloe’s first moments being set to “Piano Fire” by Sparklehorse or the climactic “Bae” ending which closes out Life is Strange to the sounds of “Obstacles,” another Syd Matters track. None of these characters or these moments would be the same without the music. In this way Life is Strange almost feels like a playable album or musical, in how the music is so frequently intertwined with how the story itself is communicated to the player. Sound is just as important as the script or animation.

The music’s dovetailing with every other aspect of Life is Strange is such a strong contributor to how heavy the game’s indie vibes are. Released in the middle of the 2010s, the game is achingly hipster-ish at times in the ways it dresses its characters and stylizes the world at large. It all feels almost embarrassing looking at it in retrospect, but it captures a real cultural moment in a way that feels so honest to what it meant to be a teenager attempting to find an identity through culture (in this case music) when you’re adrift between childhood and adulthood. In that way it lives up to the platonic ideal of what it means to be “indie” in any sense—to be an outsider, to be someone who does not fit into the status quo.

Life is Strange understands that the power of music is its ability to speak for someone when they do not have the words to express their inner turmoil. Each character uses music to do this, but the game itself also uses music to make up for what is admittedly a flawed script with largely acceptable but unimpressive (except for maybe Max and Chloe) performances. Music is what gives Life is Strange its staying power, propelling it to the status of classic that it now holds. That can all be traced back to the first moment we walk with Max through the halls of Blackwell, and it’s that moment that we will always go back to when we hear “To All of You.”

Willa Rowe is a queer games critic based in New York City whose writing has been featured in Digital Trends, Kotaku, Inverse, and more. She also hosts the Girl Mode podcast. When she isn’t talking games she can be found on Bluesky rooting for the New York Mets.