Life Is Strange: Double Exposure At the same time, it serves as a welcome return and an exciting leap forward as fan-favorite protagonist Max Caulfield returns to the spotlight with a new friend, a new mystery, and the ability to bend reality. I took the game for a spin at Gamescom and the demo was surprisingly double exposure This may be the most mechanically interesting entry in the series so far.
The game is set ten years after the events of the original. Life is strangeNow an adult, Max has left Arcadia Bay and is working as a resident artist at Caledon College in northern Vermont. She has formed a new circle of friends with Moses, a science enthusiast, and Saphie, the daughter of the college president. After the cataclysmic events of Arcadia Bay, which both lead to this story, Max has vowed never to use her time-traveling powers again. But her new peace is shattered when Saphie is mysteriously murdered, and Max attempts to turn back the clock for the first time in years to save her. For some unknown reason, Max’s powers have evolved during her long period of inactivity, and she succeeds in tearing the fabric of time and space to access an alternate timeline where Saphie still lives but is in mortal danger. Thus, double exposure The game is a double murder mystery where players use Max’s newfound shifting powers to travel across timelines to uncover the identity of a killer in one reality, while preventing Saffy’s murder in another.
The Gamescom demo takes place shortly after Safi’s murder. I won’t spoil the narrative details, but Max must retrieve Safi’s camera from the classroom without being detected by a peeping detective. The room is locked in her current timeline, but in an alternate reality, it may not be. You can easily keep track of which timeline you’re in thanks to an icon in the top left corner, which marks the reality as either “alive” or “dead,” indicating Safi’s fate in that world. Using Max’s Pulse ability, we find a glowing weak point between realities that allows us to switch timelines, using another new trick that detects and reveals ghostly elements in other timelines. When you jump, Max tears open the current reality as if she were to instantly cross to the other side, and the agility of this transition makes for some stunning visuals.
Obtaining Saphie’s camera becomes a complex exercise in exploring rooms on the second floor, searching for clues, and encountering dead ends that can only be bypassed by switching to another timeline. Elements such as the layout of the rooms, the current activities and moods of the characters, and the locations of important items are different in each timeline, and the key to solving the puzzle is figuring out how gathering information in one world answers questions in the other world.
Starting with a simple search for the safe, you use the astronomical chart to find the important constellations Moses mentioned, then activate the projector to superimpose the star chart onto the classroom wall, so that the direction of the constellations reveals the hidden location of the safe. Solving this single puzzle requires changing the timeline several times to solve small riddles that logically lead to the solution.
After solving this puzzle, the detective forces his way into the classroom, triggering a stealth sequence where I have to escape the room without being detected. Simply sneaking past him is not enough. I need a noisy object to distract him, and that can only be found in the Living reality. Since he is not present in the Living timeline, I have to strategically use Shift a few times to get past him, as the patrolling detective blocks certain paths in a cluttered, box-filled room.
While doing double exposure It seems to be testing more noodles than the previous entries, but still emphasizes character relationship management and story control through dialogue choices. However, timeline hopping adds a bit of charm to the formula. While a character may be hesitant to reveal a crucial personal secret in one timeline, the other may be more forthcoming and provide information that could give Max an advantage. Using knowledge that Max technically shouldn’t have adds a thoughtful wrinkle to the dialogue that might not be well received.
that double exposure The Gamescom demo sold me on Shift as a fun mechanic, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the game uses it to tell its story. Add in Max’s return, and I’m eager to see how this multiverse murder mystery unfolds.
