“Life is Strange: Double Exposure” is a single-player adventure game that was developed by Deck Nine and published by Square Enix on Oct. 29, 2024. This game is the fifth in a series of “Life is Strange” games, focusing on an older Max Caufield from the first installment, “Life is Strange” (2015).
The story revolves around Max Caulfield, who is working as a photographer at Caledon University. One night, Max discovers her friend, Safi, dead from a gunshot wound. While grieving, she finds herself able to “pulse” into an alternate timeline where Safi is still alive. Throughout the game, Max investigates the school, students, and staff in both timelines who might have something to do with Safi’s death. Max later learns that Safi has an ability to shapeshift, and spirals out of control after learning that her mother betrayed her. As Safi struggles to stay composed, Max merges the timelines. When they return to the real world, Safi is prompted to leave Caledon to seek other people with powers like her and Max.
The most impressive thing about this game is the character design and movement. Many games these days use motion capture to make them look more realistic and accurate. Because of this, the game looks absolutely beautiful. There are a lot of moments where you can sit down, and the game plays small cutscenes of the scenery around you. This allows you to really appreciate the attractiveness of the game. There are also scenes that are close up on a character’s face, and it surprised me how amazingly real the facial expressions looked.
I also thought the music in this game was unique. One of “Life is Strange”’s staples is its music. In all of the games, the music is mostly indie with a somber feel to it, highlighting the journey and overall soul of the games. Honestly, I’ve stalled my progression just to stand around and listen to the music.
Even though the “Life is Strange” series usually doesn’t disappoint, there are some flaws in their newest game. In every game so far, the plot focuses on a character gaining a new power and their adventures with it. However, this game brings back an old character that already had a power. In 2015, Max Caufield could rewind time. Max manifesting another power doesn’t make sense, and I feel like they either should’ve kept her old power or given her new power to somebody else.
The farther into the game I got, the more problems I saw with the overall pacing and plot of the game. It starts with Max’s everyday life at Caledon, until Safi dies. Then the game is about uncovering everybody’s secrets to figure out who killed her. Snooping around in offices, stealing, and eavesdropping, but we never really learn what killed Safi. She died of a gunshot wound, but we don’t witness anybody shooting or about to shoot her. In fact, before she died, Safi took a picture of Max pointing a gun at her. But Max has no recollection of the photo, and we never learn what it means.
The game ends with no answers, except that Safi also has a power and she is leaving to find others like them. The plot feels like there are pieces missing, since the main question wasn’t answered. Why did we spend all that time searching for answers we never got?
In conclusion, “Life is Strange: Double Exposure” is a beautiful game, but the plot is lacking and leads to a dead end. Although I enjoyed playing this, I prefer playing the previous games, with more mystery and adventure.
