ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how complicated affections between female friends are interwoven within the ludic and narrative components of two video games that explore reunions between estranged friends: Life is Strange (Dontnod Entertainment 2015) and Night in the Woods (Infinite Fall 2017). This chapter proposes that the estranged friendships in these two games attest to the imperfections and resilience of female friendships. They thereby offer a digital space for exploring sincere coming-of-age complexities between late-adolescent girls that crucially remain unobstructed by heterosexual pursuits. Attention on this subject in video games has mostly been confined to critical analyses of the girls’ games movement of the 1990s. This is most reasonably due to the limited presence of female friendships within those games. The recent re-emergence of female friendships in these two contemporary, financially viable, and critically successful video games therefore necessitates an updated consideration. Mapping these video game designs deepens how the construction of female friendships are theorized and in turn encourages designers to continue to pursue productive feminine content in mainstream games.
