Life is Strange: Reunion – Part 1 Walkthrough and Rewind Puzzle Solutions

Part 1 of Life is Strange: Reunion runs from the opening with Chloe through Moses’s three rewind tests and the first photo demonstration. The two places people get stuck are the camera in the car trunk (you have to clear the clutter before it appears) and Test 2’s falling mug (you need the cushion from the seating area, not faster reflexes). Everything below is the full route, in order, with the puzzle solutions.

One thing worth knowing before you start: Reunion launched 26 March 2026 and has had four numbered patches. Update 1.03 (28 March 2026) adjusted rewind cooldowns and Backtalk difficulty, so if you are following a launch-week video, the timing on rewinds may feel different from what you see. None of the patches changed the puzzle solutions themselves — more on that below.

What this walkthrough covers

Part 1 establishes the core loop: observe a scene, experiment, then use Max’s rewind to reach the outcome you want. This covers the opening through the end of Moses’s training and the first fire investigation beats.

Button prompts are given as:

• PlayStation: L1 (rewind), L2+R2 (fast rewind)
• Xbox: LB (rewind), LT+RT (fast rewind)
• PC / Switch: follow the on-screen equivalents — the logic of each step is identical

PC players on non-QWERTY layouts should update before playing. An April 2026 Steam patch fixed keyboard layout detection and improved the default keybindings for those layouts; on launch builds the rewind key could land somewhere unhelpful.

The section breaks down as: the Chloe opening and first dialogue choice, the sunset photo, the fire scene and “Help” objective, Moses’s office, the three rewind tests, then the debrief and photo demonstration.

Opening with Chloe — first dialogue and the gun

After the intro, you take control of present-day Chloe backstage and get pushed into a short confrontation. Three options:

• Negotiate
• Lie
• Threaten

This sets Chloe’s tone in the scene. Negotiate keeps things calm and is the safe baseline for a first run, but the walkthrough proceeds identically whichever you pick.

Once control returns, follow the snowy path forward. You will find a gun in the snow — inspecting it is mandatory to progress. Continue down the path until the cutscene triggers and the perspective shifts away from Chloe.

Take a photo of the sunset — finding the camera

Back with Max, the objective is “Take a photo of the sunset.” The game does not highlight the camera, and this is where a lot of first runs stall into aimless wandering.

1. Walk to the rear of the car and interact with the trunk.
2. Move or inspect the clutter inside — boxes, bags, loose items — until the camera becomes visible. It is genuinely hidden underneath, not just unlit.
3. While clearing the trunk you gain access to Max’s journal. The game pauses to introduce it; back out when you are done to return to the trunk.
4. Pick up the camera once it is no longer obscured.

With the camera equipped, move to the photo marker at the viewpoint, line up the shot, and zoom in slightly before shooting. Zoom is not tightly constrained here, but a small zoom makes the game reliably recognise the composition and advance.

Fire scene and the “Help” objective

After the transition, Max arrives near the aftermath of a campus fire. The HUD gives you a bare “Help” objective. Work the area in this order:

1. Move forward and examine the graffiti when prompted — flavour text that sets up the campus tension.
2. Head up the stairs toward the building. A “Stop The Lies” sign triggers a short cutscene with some students when you approach.
3. After the conversation you can search freely. On the second bench on the right-hand side, interact with an object labelled Fire Material.

The Fire Material is the first hard signal that someone is setting fires deliberately. It feeds later investigative dialogue and is worth collecting even though there is no rewind puzzle attached to it.

From the bench, continue along the path to the right. Advancing far enough triggers another cutscene and moves the story toward Moses.

Reaching Moses’s office — the hot chocolate objective

Indoors, Max’s objective is to meet Moses for hot chocolate. Linear, but the layout disorients people on a first pass.

1. From your starting position, walk straight ahead toward the faculty area.
2. Follow the signs to the Instructor Offices section.
3. At the corridor intersection, turn left. You want room 112A.
4. Interact with the door to start the cutscene.

The conversation offers several dialogue options. In Part 1 these mostly shape tone and how Max characterises her uncertainty — cautious responses keep Moses supportive, and lines like “I didn’t know if I should” when he asks about rewinding fit the tutorial framing. The outcome that matters is not any specific line; it is that the conversation leads Moses to ask Max to practise her rewind.

Rewind basics in Moses’s office

Before the tests, the office works as a sandbox.

• L1 / LB rewinds time around Max. The world rolls backward while she stays put.
• L2+R2 / LT+RT is fast rewind — use it after long interactions or to quickly reset the room.
• Max’s knowledge and inventory persist through rewinds. This is the entire mechanic the upcoming puzzles test.

The efficient habit, and the one the game is teaching you: interact with everything, absorb the information, then rewind back to Moses before answering anything. You keep the knowledge and answer as though you already had it.

Test 1 — Who killed the swordmaster

The first test checks whether you understand that rewind preserves information. The objective reads roughly “Learn who killed the swordmaster.”

1. From Moses’s desk area, take the stairs to the upper level of the office.
2. Find the schoolgirl figurine from Moses’s fictional series No True Samurai.
3. Inspect it. Rotate the camera until you can read the name on the base: Mina Hiramatsu.
4. Rewind with L1 / LB back to when Moses first asked the question.
5. When he asks who killed swordmaster Frostbite, choose Mina Hiramatsu.

There is no penalty for a wrong answer — you can rewind and retry — but reading the figurine once saves you the loop.

Test 2 — The locked cabinet, the mug, and the door

This is the test people fail repeatedly, because the obvious solution is wrong. The objective: “Get Moses what is locked in the cabinet.”

1. Interact with the cabinet to inspect it.
2. Find the screwdriver on a nearby countertop and pick it up.
3. Use the screwdriver on the cabinet. A mug falls and shatters — this failure is intended. You are meant to see it happen.

Now hold L2+R2 / LT+RT to fast rewind to just before you opened the cabinet. The mug is intact and you know what is coming.

To prevent the break:

1. Turn Max away from the cabinet.
2. Move right, then right again, into the small seating area.
3. Interact with the cushion on the chair and pick it up.
4. Return to the cabinet carrying the cushion and open it with the screwdriver again.

The mug lands on the cushion and survives, satisfying Moses’s condition that you get the contents without breaking anything.

Moses then references the busted door. That solution is automated — let the sequence play out, then rewind twice when prompted so the door returns to its unbroken state while Max keeps the memory. Speak to Moses again to close Test 2.

Test 3 — Standing on the X and preventing the fire

The final test is about reacting with rewind to avert harm. Moses asks you to stand on the X on the floor.

1. Walk onto the X to trigger the cutscene.
2. Watch the kettle malfunction and catch fire while Moses is distracted. Note the warning signs — the kettle overboils before it ignites.
3. As it escalates, rewind with L1 / LB to just before ignition.
4. Run to the kettle and interact to unplug it before it catches.

That is the whole lesson of Part 1 compressed into one beat: observe the failure, rewind, act pre-emptively.

Debrief, students, and the photo demonstration

Speak to Moses to debrief. This conversation carries the symbolic lines — including the “the school is not a mug” exchange — and several optional branches. Many topics can be selected sequentially rather than being mutually exclusive, so explore.

The scene then transitions to Max approaching students, choosing between three names. Reggie is the path this walkthrough assumes, but any of the three keeps Part 1 on track.

Max is then asked to demonstrate a photo with a stranger:

• The subject asks why she was chosen. “You look intriguing” keeps the tone respectful; the alternative is noticeably more abrasive.
• After the photo, “I never got your name” keeps the interaction open and fits Max’s teaching role.

These are tonal. You can rewind freely to compare how each reads.

Do Part 1 choices actually branch?

Honest answer, as of July 2026: no public source maps specific Part 1 choices to specific later outcomes. Not the negotiate/lie/threaten opener, not the Fire Material, not the training dialogue.

What is documented is broader. Reunion has multiple endings driven by decisions around the Caledon fire and the state of Max and Chloe’s relationship — romantic or platonic, reconciled or not. Update 1.02 added extra epilogue scenes specifically to distinguish those outcome combinations more clearly. Update 1.04 (2 April 2026) then overhauled the relationship tracking system so the Max/Chloe reconciliation state properly reflects your choices, including whether they stayed together after Double Exposure, and updated NPC reaction lines for Moses and Loretta depending on which protagonist you are controlling.

So the systems are real and they do track you. The micro-level mapping — “threaten here and Moses reacts differently there” — is not documented anywhere reliable, and any guide claiming otherwise is guessing. Play Part 1 for tone, not for outcome engineering.

Patch history worth knowing

• v1.01 (26 March 2026, day one) — performance and lighting fixes, plus a significant bug where Chloe’s dialogue defaulted to the Sacrifice Arcadia Bay path regardless of your actual prior ending.
• v1.02 — improved Double Exposure save import reliability, fixed a facial animation freeze, rebalanced licensed music audio, and added epilogue scenes.
• v1.03 (28 March 2026) — adjusted Backtalk difficulty and rewind cooldowns. The only patch that changes how Part 1 feels to play.
• v1.04 (2 April 2026) — relationship tracking overhaul, Promise Dialogue fixes, corrected Chloe referencing the wrong timeline, and cleaner separation of the secondary romance paths.
• Steam/PC patches (April 2026) — keyboard layout detection, crash fixes when replaying scenes in one session, rewind graphical and vibration fixes, Steam Deck defaults, hair shadow flicker on low settings.

No patch added, removed or reworded any Part 1 dialogue option or changed a puzzle solution. The fixes repaired continuity and execution around existing choices. The steps above are current.

Rewind habits that carry into later parts

• Scout first. Explore a room fully and read everything before committing to answers. Max keeps the knowledge through rewinds; that is free information.
• Rewind to correct, not to grind. Repeating an action without new information to apply just costs time.
• Remember physical consequences. Test 2 exists to teach you that world state persists. If something breaks, look for an object to reposition rather than a faster input.
• Use fast rewind in dialogue-heavy scenes to get back to a branch point quickly.
• Watch what draws Max’s attention. The kettle, the figurine, the Fire Material — repeated camera attention flags puzzle or conversation relevance.

End of Part 1 checklist

• Sunset photo taken using the camera from the car trunk
• Fire scene investigated and Fire Material collected from the second bench
• Moses’s office reached (room 112A) and rewind training unlocked
• Test 1 passed — Mina Hiramatsu identified
• Test 2 passed — mug saved with the cushion, door restored via double rewind
• Test 3 passed — kettle unplugged before ignition
• Debrief completed, student approached, photo demonstration run

FAQ

Can I softlock Part 1 by picking the wrong dialogue?

No. Every Part 1 choice documented here is tonal or retryable. The tests have no fail states that block progress — you rewind and try again.

Does importing a Double Exposure save change Part 1?

It changes what Chloe references and how the relationship state starts. Import reliability was improved in v1.02 and the tracking was overhauled in v1.04, so play on a patched build if continuity matters to you.

Is Reunion episodic?

No. It released as a single complete game on 26 March 2026 for PS5, PC and Xbox Series X/S — there is no episode-by-episode rollout and no early access window.

Why does rewind feel different from launch videos?

Update 1.03 adjusted rewind cooldowns on 28 March 2026. Guides recorded in the first two days run on the pre-patch timing.

For the wider context on where this entry sits in the series, we covered what bringing Max and Chloe back actually means for the franchise and the earlier leak and its canon twist. Everything else is collected in our Life is Strange: Reunion hub.