Rachel Dawn Amber is a fictional character in the Life Is Strange video game series by Square Enix. Created by Dontnod Entertainment for the original Life Is Strange game released in 2015, Rachel's character was significantly expanded upon by Deck Nine for a prequel game titled Life Is Strange: Before the Storm released in 2017. She is voiced by actress Kylie Brown.
Her character is introduced in the eponymous Life Is Strange as an affluent, popular student who is the former best friend of character Chloe Price. She attended the protagonist Max Caulfield's school and has mysteriously vanished, serving as one theme of the story. In the prequel game Life Is Strange: Before the Storm, Rachel is a main character and forms a relationship with protagonist Chloe, which is optionally romantic.
Rachel's character was noted as an important theme in the original game and her portrayal in Before the Storm was generally received positively by critics and attracted fans. Commentators noted and criticized the eventual reveal of her being kidnapped and subsequently murdered in the original Life Is Strange as an LGBT variation of the "women in refrigerators" trope.
Concept and development
Dontnod Entertainment (Life Is Strange) 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." 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".
Deck Nine (Before the Storm) 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. 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."
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." 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." 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".
Fictional biography and portrayal
Life Is Strange (2015) Rachel's six-month long disappearance acts as the theme for the events of the story, which concludes with her dead body being found. Rachel is initially introduced as an affluent and popular student of Blackwell Academy who mysteriously vanishes without explanation.
