Word Count: 698
Published Jun 25th, 2024
Life is Strange: Double Exposure is the first genuine sequel to 2015’s “Life is Strange”, in that others have been made, but this is the first to feature Max Caufield, the original’s beloved protagonist, once again. This is a bold choice, as max’s story was pretty clearly complete at the end of the first game, yet here she is once again taking up both the mantle of protagonist and, more concerningly, the use of her powers. I’m not overly impressed with how deck nine has handled the life is strange franchise after having taken it from don’t nod, and now we observe their attempt to alter the canon of the first story. While this isn’t necessarily a terrible thing, it does make me concerned for the direction of the game. Let me explain why.
The genius in don’t nod’s original “Life is Strange” was, at a base level, inherent to max’s use of her powers. It was quite frankly genius to take a genre notorious for save scumming and “rewinding” (pun intended) and turn it into a bespoke mechanic. This allowed don’t nod to balance short term consequenses with lasting ones and be more secure in their knowledge that players would be, for the most part, happy with their choices, at least in the short term. This deincentivised the 4th wall breaking save scums and allowed a much deeper, more coherent, immersive story to be told in the fiction, as players would be taken through the game facing the lasting consequenses of potentially bad decisions that they made and stuck to. This is usually not the case for similar games, as players tend to optimize and save scum the fun out of reactive storytelling, instead opting for perfection rather than the mistakes and imperfections that will inevitably make any story better in the long run. The original’s mechanic had, for the most part done away with this, which is what makes it that much better than its bretheren, at least in my opinion.
This is also what I was happy about when I heard about double exposure. I was hopeful that the original mechanic would return, allowing for more of that awesome gameplay. Of course, the first game’s plot does make even this a bad call, but from a gameply perspective, I was hopeful. Then they announced that the had changed the mechanic. This, for obvious reasons, is a bit of a red flag for me. Why bring back the original protagonist for any reason other than to bring back her signature power? Narratively, her using it again doesn’t make sense, which honestly is probably reason enough to keep the character retired, seeing as this is a narrative game, however now it doesn’t make mechanical sense either. The only option left is that they’re looking to make a cash grab off of nostalgia, which is a tragic end for the series. How do they intend to make this mechanical loss up? It’s a big question, but for the sake of the game, I sure hope they have a big answer.
The first game very notably ended with the resounding message that the use of max’s powers had dire consequenses, even when used to save those she loves. So why in hell is she doing the same damn thing again? She knows people die for a reason and if she wants them not to, then there’s gonna be hell to pay. I hate how they’ve just repeated a plot point from the first one, as if she’s learned nothing. Why the hell would she ever use that power again? She knows about it now. Regardless of ending, she’s not the type of person to open pandora’s box again, because she knows what that brings. it’s definitely one hell of a hole to write yourself out of, and I hope for the sake of these characters, this story, and this game that i’ve come to love, they write well. I’m not gonna say it’s impossible; I can think of a couple ways that they might start to go about it, but it’s going to be hard. And I really really hope that they have what it takes.