A new place to live, new friends, an attractive job – Maxine Caulfield has turned her life around. Her award-winning photographs have earned her a scholarship to the renowned Caledon University in Vermont, where she now works as a photographer in residence and as a lecturer. But a trauma from the past overshadows the new beginning.
One would think that Max has settled in well here. And yet the catastrophe that happened ten years ago and was recounted in the first part of the “Life is Strange” series is still all too present: a crime at a small-town college, abuse of power, an apocalyptic hurricane. Back then, Max – and the players with her – ultimately had to decide whether the life of her friend Chloe or the city should be sacrificed. Max never wanted to use her supernatural powers that made this choice possible again. But that changes when a mysterious death shakes Caledon University.
Parallel universes instead of time travel
The starting point of “Life is Strange: Double Exposure” is promising – and expectations for the computer game are high after “Life is Strange” set new narrative standards in the medium in 2015. The episodic structured coming-of-age drama offered believably human main and supporting characters: their feelings, their language, even what was communicated between the lines – all of this was unusually nuanced.
Max’s supernatural ability to rewind time and change the course of events also created excitement, which repeatedly presented players with moral decisions. The game fluctuated between moments of shock and melancholic absorption – which was further emphasized by the soft-focus aesthetic and the indie-folk soundtrack (Mogwai, Amanda Palmer, etc.). What other game allowed you to just sit on the couch and play the guitar?
“Life is Strange” was the starting point for a series of games with changing locations and protagonists, “Life is Strange: Double Exposure” now picks up the events of the first part and brings Max back as the main character. When her friend Safi dies of a gunshot wound on campus, Max sets out to find the murderer.
She soon notices that her supernatural abilities have changed: she can no longer turn back time, but can travel back and forth between two parallel worlds. In one world, Safi is already dead, but in the other he is still alive, but apparently also in great danger; Other storylines also developed differently. Max is now trying to save Safi’s life by exploring both worlds – and influencing events here and there.
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The constant change of worlds definitely has its charm. Especially when Max learns more about the people who play a role in “Double Exposure”: her nerdy, somewhat obscure friend Moses, various university teachers with their own agendas, the head of the “Abraxas” student association, etc also the bartender with whom Max flirts heavily right at the beginning.
In the conversations and the parallel social media posts, she learns a lot about the person’s motives and interconnections and puts this knowledge together like a puzzle; She documents the events with her Polaroid camera. Players can choose in the dialogues whether Max appears empathetic, brash or even inquisitorial. The facial expressions of the characters are particularly well done – with details such as nervous blinking, frowning or a doubtfully raised corner of the mouth. The German dubbing is also worth listening to.
Unbelievable characters, alleged consequences
However, what “Double Exposure” does to the characters themselves is less convincing – because they often behave in surprisingly contradictory ways. A hair-raising example is Max herself when she finds out that her friend has gone through her wallet – and then can’t even be indignant in the dialogue. Some characters react to Max’s sometimes very strange questions (“Where would you hide your valuables?”) with irritating indifference and, subsequently, sheer amnesia. This is particularly annoying because the game regularly uses an overlay to emphasize that this or that decision “will have consequences”.
The fact that many actions obviously have no consequences makes the whole thing seem a bit arbitrary. The playful tasks are also often all too simple: for example when Max has to search the university bar for details before she can even talk to the bartender. Or when she routinely transports a key from one world to another to open a safe there.
Despite this sometimes unbelievable character drawing and the all too routine puzzles, “Double Exposure” achieves something remarkable: the plot remains exciting. On the one hand, this is because some characters are actually so complex that you always want to find out more about them. On the other hand, “Double Exposure” has very atmospheric and touching moments in its approximately twelve hours of playing time. However, the sequel doesn’t quite achieve the emotional impact of its predecessor.