Life Is Strange: Double Exposure

Life Is Strange: Double Exposure
Developer(s)	Deck Nine
Publisher(s)	Square Enix
Director(s)	Jonathan Stauder
Producer(s)	T. Julian Bell
Designer(s)	Christopher Sica
Programmer(s)	Ben Tarr
Artist(s)	Andrew Weatherl
Writer(s)	Felice Kuan Deandra Fallon Warrick
Composer(s)	Tessa Rose Jackson
Series	Life Is Strange
Platform(s)	PlayStation 5 Xbox Series X/S Nintendo Switch Windows
Release	October 29, 2024
Genre(s)	Adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player

Life Is Strange: Double Exposure is a 2024 episodic adventure game developed by Deck Nine and published by Square Enix. The fourth main installment of the Life Is Strange series, it is a direct sequel to Life Is Strange (2015). The plot focuses on an older Max Caulfield who, upon discovering new supernatural abilities that allow her to travel between two timelines, finds herself investigating a murder case involving her new best friend.

Double Exposure was released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on October 29, 2024, with a Nintendo Switch version to be released later in 2024.

Plot

In late 2023, ten years after the events in Arcadia Bay, Oregon, Max Caulfield has moved to Lakeport, Vermont, where she now works as a photographer-in-residence at the prestigious Caledon University. She had long sworn to never use her time rewinding powers again as a result of the consequences that occurred in her past. On the night of December 4, after hanging out with her colleagues Safiya "Safi" Llewellyn-Fayyad and Moses Murphy, Max discovers Safi has been mysteriously killed by a gunshot wound to the chest. Max spends the next few days in isolation, mourning her friend. Later, Max discovers a new power: the ability to "pulse" and glimpse into an alternate timeline, where Safi is still alive. This power expands to allow Max to travel between timelines at will. She visits the "Living" timeline, where she learns that Safi's car had been vandalized by an unknown assailant. Realizing that Safi's life may still be at risk, Max decides to investigate the case in hopes of identifying Safi's killer in the "Dead" timeline.

During her investigation, Max meets several residents of Caledon University: Yasmin Fayyad, the president of the university and Safi's mother; Amanda Thomas, a waitress at the local bar, Snapping Turtle; Vinh Lang, Yasmin's administrative assistant and leader of the Abraxas secret society; Gwen Hunter, a professor specializing in Non-Creative Fiction; Lucas Colmenero, the head of the Literature Department; and undergraduate students Loretta Rice, Reggie Kagan, and Diamond Washington. In the Living timeline, Max discovers that both Gwen and Lucas are implicated in separate incidents for actions they did not commit. Meanwhile, in the Dead timeline, Reggie asserts that he has seen a doppelganger of himself. Moses reaches out to Max and later admits to stealing Safi's camera from the police. Max successfully retrieves it from Moses's office and conceals it from Vermont State Police Detective Vince Alderman. In doing so, Max discovers another new power: the ability to "entangle" and warp objects between the two timelines, swapping their places. When Max examines the camera, she and Moses find that the last photo Safi took shows Max pointing a gun at her, which prompts Moses to leave in anger, convinced that Max is the killer.

The next day, Max attempts to use her rewind power on the photo, only to find herself in a vision of the future, where a storm is raging in Caledon, similar to the one in Arcadia Bay, while Safi seemingly begs Max to shoot her to put an end to the storm. Max later calls Moses to the overlook where Safi died, and reveals her powers to him to win back his trust. Max and Moses then notice a ghostly apparition of Alderman, but as they attempt to run away, they are stopped by the real Alderman. Both Aldermans touch each other, causing a violent reaction that makes both of them disappear completely from existence. As Max continues her investigation in the living timeline, she discovers that Gwen canceled Safi's book deal because its content primarily focused on Maya Okada, a former Caledon undergraduate and Safi's best friend who died by suicide. Max further learns that Maya took her life because Lucas plagiarized her book, leading to his fame, while both Vinh and Safi were unable to defend Maya. Upon returning home, Max encounters an intruder who turns out to be Safi, now revealed to have shapeshifting powers.

Max and Safi explain their powers to one another, and Safi admits that she was the one pretending to be Gwen and Lucas to disrupt their lives because of their involvement in the cancellation of her book. They both agree to work together to expose Lucas' fraudulence at a Krampus-themed party hosted at the Turtle. They succeed in doing so, but later, Lucas privately tells Safi that it was Yasmin who approved the cancellation of her book, and that he and Gwen only helped her. Enraged, Safi confronts Yasmin at the overlook, causing her powers to spiral out of control and unleashing the storm from Max's vision over Caledon. As Safi begins to uncontrollably shapeshift, Max uses her rewind power to grab hold of Safi and rewinds time to the night of December 4. Both retain their memories of the previous events, but the storm somehow follows them back in time. Safi pleads with Max to kill her to bring an end to the chaos, but Max refuses, choosing instead to walk into the storm with Safi to find another way to stop the chaos. Max then finds herself in an unfamiliar timeline created by the combination of their powers, navigating various locations in Caledon as well as painful memories from her past in Arcadia Bay. She finds her friends, some whose minds are merged with Safi's, and uses her polaroid camera to take double-exposed pictures of them, separating Safi from each of them. Eventually, Max and Safi reunite and return to the real world, where the Dead and Living timelines have merged into one. Severing ties with her mother, Safi decides to leave Caledon to seek out other people with powers like herself and Max. She asks Max to wait for her return one day and to assist her in learning to harness her powers. Max must then choose whether to accept or decline Safi's request.

In the aftermath of the storm, Max decides to reveal her powers to her friends at Caledon while preparing for Safi's return. In a post-credits scene, Safi meets with Diamond, who exhibits excessive nose-bleeding. From this, Safi infers that Diamond may also have powers, and offers to help her seek answers.

Development

In June 2024, during the Xbox Games Showcase, Deck Nine revealed their latest installment in the Life Is Strange series, which serves as a direct sequel to Life Is Strange (2015). The game avoids making one of the two endings from the first game canon by allowing players to choose an ending organically in Double Exposure. Narrative director Felice Kuan added "We knew we had to respect the two unforgettable endings to the first chapter of Max's story, while also crafting something new, something fresh that echoed Max's past challenges even while it moved Max's personal story forward". Game director Jonathan Stauder said that the studio does not consider either ending canon, which allows players to decide their ending through "Max's thoughts, her journal, her SMS, her interactions with other characters, what she opts to reveal about her past to her new friends, it's all reflective of that final choice". The game features a new ability for Max, moving away from her rewind powers in the first game. Instead, she will have a new shift power, allowing her to jump between parallel timelines. Stauder said "the new power gives us kind of an on ramp to not a new Max, but Max gets to have a different outlook and perspective on things via the new power".

Release and impact

Life Is Strange: Double Exposure was released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on October 29, 2024. Players who pre-ordered the Ultimate Edition of the game received early access to the first two chapters, starting from October 15, 2024. The Deluxe Edition adds some small cosmetics and a gameplay content related to a missing cat. This ultimate edition early access raised concerns about spoilers.

Impact

Don't Nod, the developer of two previous Life Is Strange games, delayed their new game, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage into 2025 to avoid going up against Double Exposure.

Reception

Reception

Aggregate score

Aggregator	Score
Metacritic	(PS5) 73/100 (XBXS) 75/100 (PC) 76/100

Review scores

Publication	Score
4Players	7.5/10
Destructoid	8/10
GamesRadar+	3.5/5
IGN	9/10
PC Gamer (US)	72/100
PC Games (DE)	8/10
Push Square	6/10
The Games Machine (Italy)	8.8/10

Life Is Strange: Double Exposure received "generally favorable" reviews from critics for the PC and Xbox Series X/S versions, while the PS5 version received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator website Metacritic.

4Players opined that the game retained likeable characters, sarcastic humor, detailed locations, and nostalgic feel, but mentioned that it did not match the original's impact and there were "some rough edges" in the story and technical performance. Destructoid saw it as "a satisfying sequel that ties in the events of its prequel well", praising its captivating story, character development, and nostalgic appeal, but criticizing some predictable plot twists and a few one-dimensional characters. GamesRadar+ found the mystery intriguing, the cast of characters diverse and the facial animations visually expressive. The criticisms focused on the limited time with characters and dual timelines that hinder emotional investment. IGN thought the game lived up to the original's standards and was an improvement "on nearly every aspect from the previous games", lauding the character development and handling of serious topics with nuanced writing. The Games Machine stated that its captivating story had believable characters and surprising twists, cleverly blended mystery and science fiction, and offered great graphics and sound, while criticizing its simplistic puzzles and walking simulator feel.

PC Gamer appreciated its mystery aspect, Max's new powers, and the exploration of serious topics with nuanced writing, but questioned the rehashing of old narrative groundwork, inconsistent sound mixing, and underdeveloped characters due to the dual timelines, ultimately calling it "a somewhat unnecessary-feeling sequel that still manages to tell a compelling story, if not a little messy and underbaked." Technical issues like slow-loading textures, overlapping dialogues, and other graphical glitches were also bothersome to PC Games, which cited the story, characters, animations and soundtrack as high quality but the puzzles as simple and the game world as small. The game was disappointing for Push Square, which voiced criticism for what it described as audio issues, lack of emotional resonance, overreliance on the supernatural, and underdeveloped setting and story compared to previous games, but liked the visuals, Max's return, the early episodes and some of the characters.

External links

• Official website