Life is Strange: Double Exposure Review

Life is Strange has proved to be a surprisingly resilient series. In the same months of early 2015 I did a kind of triple feature, playing the first two The Walking Dead games and the first episode of Life is Strange. Despite taking almost an entire year to release all five episodes, DONTNOD’s tale of Max Caulfield felt like a cozy answer to Telltale Games’ breakout hit.

Despite being based on a licensed property, The Walking Dead‘s first season was an emotionally devastating experience. Its narrative choices bolstered a gripping story that I found infinitely more enjoyable than the television show that hobbled along seemingly forever. But Life is Strange was significantly less grandiose. A teenager with the ability to rewind time reverses the death of her old best friend and across five episodes, players witness growing bonds and the answer behind a missing girl and a cataclysmic event.

Max’s dalliance with the supernatural was a crucial hook behind Life is Strange. It not only gave players an excuse to revert unwanted choices after seeing them played out, it set up a wild cliffhanger at the end of the first episode where a massive storm was poised to destroy Max’s hometown. But more importantly, those five episodes were peppered with small moments of character building, reflective moments, and a relatively cozy atmosphere. Who would have thought a game about troubled teens also tackling growing up would resonate so much?

Until now, each new entry in the series has focused on a new protagonist. With Life is Strange: Double Exposure, Max Caulfield returns with a whole new mystery and whole new powers. And while diverging from a lot of what made me fall in love with True Colors, Double Exposure proves that while Life is Strange is flexible, there’s a beating heart that should never change.

Double Exposure continues True Colors‘ trend of vastly improved visuals and technical prowess. Anyone who played early Life is Strange knows the gulf that exists between the voice acting and the lip syncing. I think I didn’t want to admit how much it bothered me back in 2015, especially considering how expressive I felt the game’s writing to be, even at its corniest.

With Hannah Telle back as Max Caulfield, I’m thrilled Deck Nine has given our beloved heroine a starring role again. Thankfully, realism is not the aim of Life is Strange because I feel as if it would pollute the series towards the realm of the uncanny valley. Being more fantastical, dramatic, and emotive, the art direction used in Double Exposure focuses more on accurate lip syncing and a wide range of facial expression. When a character is under duress, thrilled at the prospect of a date, or nervous about a police interrogation, players are going to be able to tell.

This has no freaky or borderline comically quality like L.A. Noire. Double Exposure features the kind of character work that makes a face or particular identifiers pop. I think of Max’s friend Moses, an astronomy teacher who, when nervous, fidgets with his fingers. But I also remember his face, an African American male with a pronounced beard, glasses, and eyes that dart back and forth with worry. Or Loretta, the true crime podcaster whose lips curl and eyes narrowly squint in suspicion when Max tries to lie to her.

The cohesion between Double Exposure‘s art direction and voice acting drive home that this new setting of Caledon University is a humble, lived-in ecosystem where the game will take place. Much like Arcadia Bay or Haven Springs, Caledon has that progressive air of a college town full of personality and personalities. This is not big city living, it’s an intimate setting meant to house a dozen or so characters that players will become familiar with over Double Exposure‘s five chapters.

Max finds herself in Caledon as a kind of artist in residence for her photography work. Much like in real life, it has seemingly been ten years since we’ve last seen Max. She has become best friends with Safi, whose mother is President at Caledon. Much like in True Colors, players have the ability to scroll through Max’s phone and look at a glut of text messages from other people who have reached out to her in time and over the course of the game for added context and flavor.

In the first chapter, one of the first crucial decisions players have to make is to decide whether or not they chose to save Chloe’s life or sacrifice Chloe for the good of Arcadia Bay. Regardless of which option, Deck Nine has framed Max’s time with Chloe as a crucial focal point of her life. In my playthrough, I stuck with my “canonical” choice of saving Chloe and still felt pangs of guilt as Max dodged questions from others about what happened in her past.

There’s no hiding the fact that Double Exposure speaks a great deal to trauma, especially the trauma experienced by deep loss. I found Chloe’s lack of physical presence more tangible by the fact that Max’s journal seems to be written as if she is speaking to the “blue-haired girl” who she couldn’t make it work out with. Max’s ability to not be able to live in the present created a gulf between her and Chloe, hindering Max’s powers to rewind time.

Double Exposure‘s first chapter does an exceptional job at setting the tone for Max’s current life and establishing most of the characters that will flit in and out of the rest of the game. Gone are the days of “hella” and what, to me, was some slightly cringe dialog from the original series. While I think DONTNOD being a French developer writing dialog for teenagers that was localized for American audiences was a bit of a roadblock towards sounding natural, it still had a sincerity and warmth to it.

Because its characters are aged up, there’s more flexibility in how they can talk. Caledon is a place of people in the early and late twenties and a handful of those a bit older. Max is friends with teachers and TAs and will encounter several students as well. Players can scroll through the game’s Facebook-like social feed which also includes more context for the world.

While it may lose that unique spark that set the original Life is Strange apart from the pack, Double Exposure does an excellent job at translating a more natural dialect for its characters. Not only is there an appropriate amount of generational slang and terminology thrown in, there is a depth and emotion behind the acting and writing. Being a game that also positions itself as a kind of interactive, dramatic piece, the writing will often swing a bit wild to emphasize a big event or establish a character.

I think about Alderman, a detective that has come to investigate a murder during Chapter One that frames the rest of Double Exposure‘s time. In only a handful of scenes he is written as aggressive and untrusting of Max, almost immediately suspicious of her life in Arcadia Bay. As a person who could potentially impede both the player and Max uncovering the truth, he’s written to be unlikable and a bit sneering. But before becoming caricature, Alderman has a turn which frames him in a different light.

Max’s ability to go back in time purely as a mechanic to reverse one of the numerous big choices in the game may come as a shock but it forces players to sit with the fallout. Reloading to a prior checkpoint isn’t always the option here either because the game seems to checkpoint right after most consequential decisions are made.

During my time with Double Exposure, I made a concerted effort to play the game as the Max I thought she would want to be, which in turn was almost an extension of how I go through games with narrative choice. To me, Max always felt like a kid who just wanted to help people and celebrate the beauty of the world around her, despite the tragedy. I’m not always a goody-two-shoes but I want my gaming troupe of characters to get along and I definitely tried to play Max nice–possibly a bit nicer to certain characters than she may actually have been.

Even before credits rolled it was possible to see how prior choices would have drastically affected how a character may have responded to Max. Being nice or ignoring someone entirely may leave a good impression to the point where they will help you out down the line. An attempt to be overly helpful may have someone deem Max too nosy and therefore untrustworthy.

In an attempt to break her drought of time manipulation, Max attempts to prevent the core murder of the game from happening. But in doing so, she actually creates a parallel timeline where the person is still alive and many things are seemingly different.

The framing of the “Living” and “Dead” timelines is a natural extension of Deck Nine’s interest in exploring the emotions of its characters and how they are affected by different events. In the “Dead” timeline, more somber music plays while exploring and talking, its tones being more cool and blue. In the “Living” one it feels like the sun is out, bathing Caledon and its interiors in a warm light. It may not be the most subtle touch but it’s a stark reminder of the stakes.

Surprisingly, the “Living” timeline isn’t completely smooth as Max discovers the dead person’s existence allowed for certain events to play out that wouldn’t have otherwise. The twist with Double Exposure is having the player navigate each timeline as Max to piece together information about key individuals who may have more information around why the death happened.

Players have the ability to find points in either timeline where Max can literally walk into the other. In addition, a tap of a button pulses out into the world showing characters and objects present in the other timeline, highlighted either blue or orange. At times, Max may need to bring an object from one timeline into another. Or she may need to hear a conversation without the person knowing they are being spied on because she can hear what others are saying in their respective timelines as well.

Much like in all the other Life is Strange games, it isn’t the mechanical implementation around the powers that is important. Double Exposure does not feature any significantly challenging puzzles and is a considerably “easy” game in the adventure genre. Personally, I don’t mind this lack of impeding progress to be a detractor. At around two to three hours per chapter, there’s a good amount of depth in the conversations and storytelling alone to keep players occupied.

Honestly, Double Exposure feels like a smaller game than True Colors based on square footage. The game primarily takes place in Max’s house, a local bar, a small ground on Caledon, an administrative building, and the art building. This is a tight experience and in the real world, real people probably aren’t going to that many places. Besides, Deck Nine has absolutely stuffed Double Exposure with some incredible art that can be found on walls, in Max’s journal, and some fairly impressive prose and poetry that doesn’t feel trite. I’d like to imagine the art team had a blast sourcing out and creating the numerous pieces across the world.

There were a handful of times where Double Exposure had texture pop-in upon loading new scenes. And at one point when only the first two chapters were available to play, a conversation Max was having with Moses suddenly caused Moses’ model to disappear, causing Max to talk to an empty chair. It was an unfortunate moment because the conversation was emotional and took me out of it. But it was the only time something like that had happened to me.

Curiously, what ended up sticking with me about the game was that its core mystery so often felt like it took a backseat to numerous moments of character growth and distinct subtext and messaging. Double Exposure is an inclusive and diverse game that attempts to cover various hues of the human experience. But later in the story I truly appreciated aspects of tackling generational trauma, societal expectations, and the silencing of women by the male voice. Some of these elements aren’t subtle but many lurk in the wings of the writing, asking the player to interpret it themselves.

When the game wrapped up I was left thrilled at the prospect of where Life is Strange will go next. In terms of Double Exposure‘s scope, it aims to tell an intimate story while teasing at a potentially wider universe. I will say that for a lover of movies and narratives, this particular entry had several shocking cliffhangers and multiple moments where I froze as the game halted to a stop and made me pick one decision or the other. Deck Nine could perhaps enrich their universe a bit more by including “side quests” and more asides that weren’t randomly listening to conversations about narrative threads that evolve over the chapters but don’t impact the main narrative. I’m curious to see where not only this story goes but what it possibly means for Life is Strange as a whole.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure brings back Max Caulfield for a new adventure, allowing Deck Nine to incorporate everything they’ve learned from the series so far. It captures the raw emotion of True Colors and the intriguing mystery of Max’s inaugural journey. But even with new powers, the emotional stakes are the same as ever for Max and the player as Double Exposure proves life can always get stranger.