Riley is fed up. Dropped off at a bus stop after dark, she finds herself standing alone in an eerily quiet town. With her new colleagues nowhere in sight, she surveys the quaint seaside square, muttering a curse under her breath. It turns out, no matter how long you’re gone, home is always exactly how you left it.
It’s not just our pixel-art protagonist that’s struck by a sense of deja vu. Despite the last seven years serving up the triple threat of global pandemic, looming climate catastrophe and impending AI apocalypse, Oxenfree II’s simplistic visuals transport me right back to the simpler days of 2016.
Part walking simulator, part branching-dialogue talk ’em up, Oxenfree II blends the paranormal with the interpersonal, seeing players fend off vengeful ghosts while carefully navigating the ever-perilous minefield of human relationships. To players of the original, this will sound incredibly familiar and, initially at least, that familiarity breeds contempt. As you amble across idyllic landscapes in the American midwest, there’s a clear checklist of Oxenfree stalwarts being met. Spooky sea spirits? Check. Treacherous hikes punctuated by sass-filled conversations and magic walkie talkies? All present and correct. Yet as this twisting twoquel’s narrative threads start to unfurl, its haunted hallmarks reveal an expertly woven and surprisingly poignant tale.
Roaming the sleepy seaside town from a zoomed-out perspective, Oxenfree II’s handsomely drawn felt-like forestry recalls a 90s sidescroller. But unlike the pulse-pounding action of the recent indie-led metroidvania revival, this is a story told through a leisurely sci-fi-tinged, seaside stroll. A sidestroller, if you will.
While you roam Camena’s cavernous underbelly, or trek across its sleepy mountain range, you’ll find yourself constantly nattering to fellow environmental scientist Jacob. Unlike its predecessor’s cast of peppy teens, reluctant heroine Riley and Jacob are far more jaded leads, with these mid 30s burnouts struggling to come to terms with their respective pasts and wearily attempting to determine their increasingly bleak-looking futures.
Cheery stuff, eh? Thankfully, you get a say in how Riley’s story pans out. Thanks to some wonderfully naturalistic voice acting, each of your seemingly innocuous dialogue choices plays a pivotal role in determining the events that unfold. Much like in real life, your little off-kilter comments all add up in Oxenfree II, and ultimately, how you choose to respond to conversations determines whether Jacob even deigns to join you for the final portion of your adventure, or how you’re treated by Camena’s mysterious poltergeist-worshipping cultists.
It’s this balance of the mundane and the supernatural that makes Oxenfree II such a pleasingly peculiar proposition. Developer Night School effortlessly flits between channelling that foreboding feeling of being lost in the woods after dark and the existential wave of calm that comes with a daytime hike.
Gameplay-wise, there isn’t a whole lot to Night School’s long-awaited sequel, with that aforementioned magic walkie talkie forming the basis of Oxenfree II’s puzzling. As well as using it to communicate with your boss at the environmental research agency, your reliable radio transmitter can close interdimensional portals, stave off spectres and even prise open frequency-sealed 20th century doors.
In other words, Oxenfree II’s walkie talkie puts the lowly iPhone to shame. This time the analogue-stick-twirling puzzles of the first game have been given a welcome visual overhaul, with radio waves satisfyingly converging into three-dimensional shapes as you fiddle with different frequencies.
While it’s unlikely to win over anyone who didn’t like the original, Oxenfree II succeeds by being a surprisingly human experience. At its core, this is a tale about coming back from tragedy, about snapping yourself out of a seemingly impossible rut and rediscovering your lust for life – only with more cults, ghosts and world-threatening portals.
Oxenfree II is very much a chin-stroking indie game, a refreshingly slow-paced adventure that lends itself to being played in hour-long bursts as the sun sets and the darkness draws in. Although you’ll leap across clifftops, and hop in and out of portals, this is a story first and a video game second: the antithesis of booting up FromSoftware’s Elden Ring for a reflex-testing romp.
This, then, is the playable equivalent of curling up under a duvet and binge-watching a Netflix series. Fitting, really, considering that the monolithic streaming platform coughed up to publish this sequel. It certainly won’t be a game for everyone, but its punchily paced paranormal parable respects its players’ time, and by the existentialism of the end credits, it will certainly have you reflecting on how you want to spend yours.
• Oxenfree II is available now on Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4/5 and PC
