Life is Strange: Reunion: Why You Should Attack the Basement Intruder
A masked man swinging a sledgehammer in a cramped basement seems like a clear cue to play it safe, but the safe option here quietly costs you a piece of evidence you'll want much later.
The scene drops a timer on screen and gives two options, distract or attack. Neither one ends in a game over, so there's no wrong answer in the sense of losing outright. There is a wrong answer in the sense of missing something important.
What Actually Happens With Each Choice
Picking distract has Chloe trigger a blaring siren over the basement speakers instead of engaging directly. The intruder assumes police are pulling up outside and clears out. Reggie's fine, nobody gets hurt, and it plays like the smart, controlled move in the moment.
Picking attack has Chloe shove the guy instead. He panics, bolts, and drops both his sledgehammer and a folded blueprint on the floor on his way out. Chloe picks it up automatically once the cutscene takes over, no extra searching required.
I went with distract on my first run, mostly on instinct. Nobody wants their character walking toward a guy holding a sledgehammer if they don't have to. It felt like the obvious call right up until I realized much later what that blueprint was actually for.
Why the Blueprint Matters So Much
This isn't just a random collectible sitting in a basement. It ties directly into two things that matter a lot more than a single scene.
The Major Gumshoe trophy needs every piece of Abraxas evidence collected in one playthrough to fully fill out the whiteboard. The basement blueprint is the piece almost everyone misses, since distracting the intruder feels like the more sensible choice in the heat of the moment. If the goal is a completion run, attack is the only way to grab it without circling back through the whole chapter again later.
The bigger issue is what happens with Vinh. During the Abraxas house fire, talking him down from the explosion requires actual proof, not just words. He's too stubborn and too tied up in what's going on to listen otherwise. Having the blueprint in the inventory unlocks a dialogue option that gives Chloe the leverage to pull him back from it. Without it, he brushes off every warning and there's no way to talk him out of what happens next.
So choosing distract in the basement doesn't just cost a trophy, it removes an option in a much later, much heavier scene.
The Actual Recommendation
Playing it safe in the basement feels better for about five seconds. The tradeoff isn't worth it. Attacking the intruder still keeps Reggie safe, it just adds a shove and a bit of chaos that Chloe would probably go for anyway given who she is. Take that option, grab the blueprint, and keep the leverage for when it actually counts.
