Life is Strange: Double Exposure

Nello boundless ocean of existing video games, the guys at Dontnod, then a relatively unknown French software house founded by Oskar Guilbert, would never have imagined revolutionizing the narrative adventure genre with Life is Strange, the first and hugely successful chapter that told the adventures of Max and Chloe, lifelong friends dealing with the unsolved disappearance of one of their peers to whom they were both attached. Nearly ten years later and with two official sequels behind it (with very different characters and stories), we are about to find out what became of one of the two protagonists. Life is Strange: Double Exposure will hit store shelves on October 29, 2024 and will be available for owners of PlayStation 5 and XSX, and at a later date Nintendo Switch will also be able to get hold of one of the most anticipated titles of the end of the year.

Giocai at the first chapter literally on edge with every choice made, captivated by a high-level script, inspired character design, and a sense of nostalgia in evoking the high school years, with friendships, rivalries, and eternal promises that we know well would never have been kept. And the budding cradle of a feeling sweet, stifled by the need to do justice to Rachel, the missing girl whose mystery will reveal how dark the darkness of a provincial town like Arcadia Bay is. This new chapter, at the helm of which we find Deck Nine Games instead of Dontnod, seems to gather together the themes and elements described above, transposing them into a slightly more adult setting, after all Max herself is no longer a little girl, nevertheless trouble follows her like a second shadow: her new friend Safi is killed.

In the first chapter, Max had the power to manipulate time, albeit with limits that we had to take into account, and apparently his ability has evolved, because now he can even travel from his own reality to another parallel one, sustained by the scope of other choices, moral and otherwise, that were made to shape the world in full “What if…?” style.

Avremo to deal with a young adult who is more self-aware, and without spoiling the two possible endings of the first chapter, it seems clear that Max has learned to cope with the upheaval of what she experienced as a teenager. Old players will find dynamics and gameplay similar to those already appreciated in the series: if on the one hand we will be asked to select, through a targeted dialogue situated in the early stages of the game, which ending we chose at the end of the first chapter so as to connect Double Exposure and the first game in close continuity, on the other the cards will be reshuffled, especially as regards the relationships between the protagonist and the various characters we will meet.

During the investigation, which is the core of the game, we will explore places and talk with people, interact with situational objects in full “solve the puzzle like the good old point-and-click games” style; however, we will also have to pay close attention to the two versions of everything, every person and every environment: since Max has the ability to jump from one reality to another, the world around her will be changeable and indefinable, like the concentric circles in a pool of water touched by a finger. And in this case, the finger that will destabilize space-time is Max herself.

One of the aspects that characterize the series is the strictly indie musical section, as far as the soundtrack is concerned: once again we will accompany Max, enjoying evocative sounds and delightful voices, capable of immersing us once more in a story where secrets, revelations, pains of a past never truly forgotten and fragments of a long-desired future will, I am sure, know how to entertain and move us.