At this point in her life, Max Caulfield should come with a warning attached – because people who make friends with her have a funny habit of dying.
Or at least, that’s what Life is Strange: Double Exposure says. A direct sequel to the classic 2015 game (in which we played an 18 year old Max solving the murder of her best friend Chloe), Double Exposure offers us the chance to meet the character ten years down the line. And guess what, she’s still solving murders.
First things first: it is such a treat to dive back into this series. It’s never shied away from dark themes, or from tackling contentious subjects like transphobia, racism and sexuality with nuance and grace.
There’s more of the same here, only more overt, because 2015 was still a time when the game’s creators couldn’t explicitly say whether Max and her doomed friend Chloe were romantically linked or not. This time around, you can retroactively fix that issue by deciding once and for all whether or not the pair were lovers – as well as which of the first game’s two devastating endings you opted for.
Anyway. Ten years later, a more mature Max has moved away from her hometown of Arcadia Bay (where the first game took place) and has a new gig, working as a photographer-in-residence at the prestigious Caledon University.
She also has a new best friend: Safi, the daughter of the principal. At least, until Safi is brutally murdered during a night out, leaving Max and the entire university reeling. Racked with guilt, Max’s search for answers leads her to discover that she has the power to travel between parallel timelines: one where Safi has died, and one where she hasn’t.
Max therefore has the chance to try and solve the murder in the second timeline before the killer strikes again, flicking back and forth between universes to ferret out answers from unsuspected department heads, friends, suspects and even Safi’s romantic love interests.
It’s a fun premise that changes up the formula from her first-game gimmick of being able to rewind time. This time around, instead of replaying conversations and picking through them for clues, Max can use her powers to circumvent obstacles and extract answers from people using information she obtained in another timeline.
Is a teacher’s room locked in one universe? Easy: hop into the parallel universe, where it probably isn’t, and have fun searching it. Fallen out with somebody? In the other universe (helpfully labelled ‘Dead’ or ‘Living’) they’re on good terms and probably willing to share their secrets. As the game progresses, Max gets the power to shift items between timelines too, thoroughly confounding its inhabitants and letting you access still more locked areas.
But while this is all well and good, Double Exposure’s greatest strength is the characters and detail it populates its world with. Characters like Safi, Moses (Max’s other friend) and Amanda (Max’s friend/ love interest, depending on what you choose) are all believably 3D, and their interactions with Max feel authentic and lived in.
Choices the player makes throughout the course of the game have a real, tangible impact on the way the story plays out (daunting, but satisfying), and Double Exposure goes out of its way to add in fun little Easter eggs, rewarding the player for taking the time to explore. And Caledon University, with its frozen ponds and snowy hills, looks stunning.
If it’s not all plain sailing, that’s more down to the gameplay. The controls are clunky, quests are often not clearly signposted, and Max has an annoying habit of running into invisible walls, or being unable to circumvent objects properly.
Fortunately, Double Exposure’s strengths more than outweigh its weaknesses. This is a melancholy, meditative game: one that feels perfect to play as the autumn weather sets in and the cold bites.
Life is Strange: Double Exposure will be available on PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S from October 29
