Life is Strange: Double Exposure |

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: Deck Nine Games

Release Date: 10/29/2024

Available On

Max! Max, you’re back! It’s so good to see Max Caulfield again. This time as a grown adult. Our Max is all grown up. Well, that’s what I wanted to say, but a few hours into the game, you will realize that while Max is back, everything surrounding her return isn’t. This is a very forced game that didn’t need to get made. While all of us are curious as to what happened to Max as she grew up, we didn’t want a repeat of the original game. Deck Nine nailed the feeling of the first game. While we’re not in the same time period (late 2000s), we are in modern times, but with new friends and foes. The atmosphere of Life is Strange is here. The surreal soundtrack, being able to interact with various objects and hear Max’s inner monologue, important choices, well-made characters, etc. It’s all here, but in a very basic package to tie it all up.

Here’s the thing: Double Exposure literally tries to repeat the original game and story. It feels very forced and eye-rolling towards the end and isn’t believable one bit. Cloe has been replaced with Safi. She’s a hotheaded character similar to Cloe, but she also has a soft side. She’s goofy and has a good sense of humor, but you can clearly see this is a Cloe replacement or clone. Then you have Lucas, who is a Mark clone, etc. There’s a pattern here. He’s another creepy teacher who has a secret that rocks the whole story. It’s predictable, which is a shame. Instead of putting Max in a new situation with her old powers, she somehow has new powers. The power of Double Exposure. She can now hop timelines. It’s pretty silly and less grounded than the original game. While having powers is silly anyways, the first game being so grounded made it believable rather than a hokey superhero wannabe story. Treading the same ground just feels wrong.

Thankfully, the characters are interesting, but not as memorable as the original cast. They all have character, flaws, good and bad traits, and are not super stereotyped. Gameplay-wise, nothing has really changed. I would go as far as to say there is less gameplay here than in the original game, and that game was already lacking any. The locales are also not very interesting and are constantly repeated. There are too many mundane indoor environments, such as the Turtle bar, the school, Max’s apartment, etc. There aren’t any outdoor locations with sweeping vistas or more interesting indoor areas. You will spend up to 10 hours in these same locations over and over again. Max is now an urbexer (Urban explorer) so why don’t we get to see some cool abandoned buildings like during the intro sequence? The game just jumps straight into Max trying to save the planet, so we don’t get time to be with her and her friends living normal lives for a bit. That’s what made the first game so great.

Gameplay involves switching back and forth between timelines to solve puzzles, but this is just an excuse to extend gameplay. There are set nodes that sparkle, and you can jump between the Dead and Living worlds (one of the characters in the game dies, and you are trying to save her and stop it). You can pulse your power to see objects placed in the other timeline in real time before switching to it, but it doesn’t add anything interesting. There’s of course the usual collectible hunt, but that’s about it. Choices in the game are fewer and don’t have the mega impact that they did in the original. Story-changing sequences don’t come by often. Maybe once a chapter or none in some of them.

At least the visuals are improved. The facial expressions are great, and there’s a lot of detail in everything while still looking like a Life is Strange game. The upgraded visual quality helps go a long way, but sadly this was wasted on so few areas to explore. The ending is also rushed and feels inconclusive and too predictable. When the credits rolled, I just felt like the entire game was just not necessary. It didn’t add any value to the original game. Fans should definitely play, but you do need to play the original to appreciate what is here. Max recaps the original game throughout the story, but not in detail, so a lot is missing. There are a lot of references to the original that new players won’t understand. Some scenes in the ending aren’t explained at all, but are direct references to the original game such as when Mark strapped Max into the chair. For a cheap purchase you will have a fun couple of evening with the game, but don’t expect anything groundbreaking.