Rachel Amber

Michel Koch, the co-director and art director, stated in a January 2016 interview with Shacknews: "We really wanted to push [Rachel Amber as] this mysterious character that you never see. We really tried to create her and have characters talk about her to the point that she was in the game, even if you never see her. We really have her be one of the main characters, but one that's never seen."[3] Koch also stated that DontNod wanted her character arc to subvert favored plot directions by audiences, since the game was "about real life" and "not a fantasy game".[3]

After publisher Square Enix chose Deck Nine to develop a Life Is Strange game, the developers chose a prequel expanding upon the plot threads established within the original game.[4][5] Within Before the Storm, they wanted to focus upon and establish Rachel Amber's relationship with Chloe Price. In a November 2017 interview with Engadget, Deck Nine's game director Chris Floyd stated that the team wanted to establish "that she was lovable. Extremely lovable, especially as we're seeing her through Chloe's eyes. And yet, we also know a lot of troubling things about her from season one. So we had to include a touch of that as well."[4]

In a March 2018 interview with Game Informer, Deck Nine lead writer Zak Garriss stated that the development of Rachel was "one of the biggest challenges in Before the Storm as a whole. We had instruction from the first game in that her absence from the story and characters' lives was felt. You could talk to every character, especially in the first episode, and someone would have something to say about Rachel."[5] He noted that it was a challenge to build her "as a compelling character. We just did our best with it. But it was fun. I think we all thought and wrote about people we've met in our lives that defined chapters for whatever reason. Your first love, the person who breaks your heart, someone who says something at just the right time and place to change the way you think about a fundamental facet of your life. We all have these people and we really focused on that and drew on that in building and creating Rachel."[5] Garris stated that the team wanted to leave it deliberately ambiguous on whether Rachel possessed some form of powers similar to that of other characters within the series. Saying that they wanted the story to primarily focus on "her ability to light Chloe up and change the spaces that she's in... [that] is really her gift".[5]

Rachel's six-month long disappearance acts as the theme for the events of the story, which concludes with her dead body being found.[6][7] Rachel is initially introduced as an affluent and popular student of Blackwell Academy who mysteriously vanishes without explanation.[8][9][10]

Rachel is stated to be the best friend of character Chloe Price and is implied to have had illicit romantic or sexual relationship with art teacher Mark Jefferson.[9][6] Throughout the town of Arcadia Bay, missing persons posters depicting Rachel, including those put up by Price, are seen.[9][6][11] Although many within the town initially dismiss concern about her situation, believing that she ran away from her parents to Los Angeles,[9][12] it is gradually revealed through the investigation of Max Caulfield and Price that her disappearance was the result of malicious activity.[9][13][14] Eventually, her body is discovered by Caulfield and Price at the Arcadia Bay junkyard.[13] It is revealed that she had been kidnapped by Jefferson and student Nathan Prescott, dying of a drug overdose.[13][14]

It is left ambiguous on who killed Rachel and whether her death was intentional.[15] Jefferson claims that Rachel was accidentally killed by Prescott in an attempt to render her unconscious. However, it is established that Jefferson is an unreliable narrator, and other parts of the story seem to conversely suggest that Jefferson intentionally murdered her.[13][14][15] Michel Koch, co-director and art director of the original Life Is Strange, said during a January 2016 interview with Shacknews about the conclusion of her character arc in Life Is Strange that "It was about real life and it was something dark and hard, but the most logical outcome was that maybe she's dead."[3]

Rachel forms a relationship with protagonist Chloe, which is optionally romantic.[7][16][17][18][19] A post-credit scene shows Chloe calling Rachel's phone seventeen times without a response.[6][7] A five-star review of the game notes, “Rachel is a whirlwind who sweeps both Chloe and the player up into her world. It’s understandable why Chloe is so smitten with her.”[20] Before the Storm's lead writer Zak Garriss, said in an April 2018 interview that "that final moment, [we’re not trying] to shock our players or punch them in the stomach or anything like that, but simply do something that I think this medium alone can really do, which is make you feel the way Chloe felt".[6]

Rachel is one of the main characters in the Life Is Strange comic series, published by Titan Comics. The comic-book serves as a sequel to the video-game, taking place after the "Sacrifice Arcadia Bay" ending of the original game.[21] Rachel makes her main debut at the end of the fourth issue when Max is forced into an alternate timeline where Chloe and Rachel are living a life together in Santa Monica.[22]

Rachel makes a brief cameo appearance in the DLC Wavelengths as a friend of Steph Gingrich and Chloe Price in a flashback.[23]

The conclusion of Rachel's storyline in Life Is Strange, which it is revealed that she had been kidnapped and subsequently murdered, received negative response from critics and scholars; with Rock Paper Shotgun's Jessica Castello citing it as an LGBT variation[lower-alpha 1] of the "women in refrigerators" trope.[29][7][30][31][32][26] Criticisms of Rachel's narrative include it was exploitative, simplistic, sensational, and cliché.[6][7][32] Drouin countered that "Chloe's attachment of Rachel" is one of the elements showing that "the Life Is Strange universe equally hinges upon female devotion".[25] Castello argued that it undercut the emotional impact of Life Is Strange: Before the Storm, saying that while "Deck Nine did an admirable job in telling Chloe and Rachel’s story" it ultimately rendered a story in which... "When bad things happen to them, it just feels unfair because we already know that they suffer enough. When they’re happy, it’s only a reminder that it will be all too fleeting."[7]