Max Caufield is accustomed to things getting weird in Life is Strange: Double Exposure
The early access demo for Life is Strange: Double Exposure is surprisingly meaty. Downloadable to players that pre-order (and provided to press by Square Enix), the preview build consists of the first two chapters of the five chapter game. Pre-ordering now allows you to play through two fifths of the game before it's eventual October 29 release, which is about 4-6 hours of gametime, depending on how much you like to wander and linger. Like most Square Enix demos, any progress you've made carries right over into the main game.
I recommend this course of action if you are going to play the game, as it gives you a lot to chew on and somewhat rekindles the old "play some and then freak out while you wait to see what happens" dynamic of Life is Strange of yore. It's a hoot.
Representation in this game is REAL, y'all
As I'm going to be reviewing the full release in a few weeks, I don't want to get into the plot and storyline all that much, beyond reiterating what is already known to audiences through Square Enix's press releases. Sometime series heroine Max Caufield is now a photographer-in-residence at Caledon University in Vermont - in the game, she seems to be on the level of a post-graduate instructor, though she does bum around with students and grad students. Mostly, she seems to hang out with Safi, her best friend (and daughter of Caledon U's dean).
Out for the evening with friends, Safi wanders away for a few moments. Wondering where her friend got off to, Max follows her, only to find her dead on a snowy bench. Shots have been fired, and Max finds herself surrounded by an entire campus of suspects.
But not Amanda. There's no way Amanda did it.
Longtime fans of the series know that Max has the ability to rewind time - or at least, she used to. She hasn't used the ability in quite a while, as it caused her more trouble than it was worth. But faced with her friend's death, she gives it the old college try, only to find herself inadvertently ripping a hole into a parallel timeline. Here, she finds that Safi is still alive and well, and has no idea of the danger she is in.
Max can dip back and forth between dimensions at certain geographic locations, and she also has a cool ability to send out a space-warp-bubble "Pulse", allowing her to see phantom representations of what is happening in one universe while she inhabits the other. This leads to a lot of bopping back and forth in order to solve puzzles and investigate the overarching murder. It's a cool dynamic, because she can question people in the dimension where Safi is alive and they have zero idea that she is running circles around them.
This homie runs a secret society. And seems strangely obsessed with Bigfoot. Instant suspect.
The funny thing about the whole experience so far is how blasé Max is when she discovers her now power. She barely even registers a moment of "Oh, this is weird, I expected that other supernatural power, and I got this one instead". She just kinda shrugs and runs with it, totally accustomed to the weirdness. Her life is strange, indeed.
Though original developers Don't Nod have moved onto other properties, Life is Strange: Double Exposure still feels very much a part of the series. Deck Nine Games is handling the development duties this time, and all of that team's experience on the remasters of the original series and the development of the stellar Life is Strange: True Colors has lent itself to the creation of a game that is both beautiful to look at and thematically resonant with the franchise's history. Max is as charming and witty as ever, and the new characters feel very real and vibrant. This game continues to use social media and journaling as a short-hand way to track characters when they are off-screen, which offers handy insight into their values and traits.
I don't think it'll shock anyone to learn that Chapter 2 in the game ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, which has left me anxious to get to the rest of the game. Keep an eye on Gaming Nexus for my full review in the next couple of weeks, but rest assured that I'll keep the spoilers to a minimum. I'm not trying to ruin anyone's fun. Or their existential dread.
