Life is Strange: Double Exposure Review

The original Life is Strange is a gripping, coming-of-age story about Max Caulfield, who happened to have the power to rewind time. It came out in 2015. It followed Max, who ended up getting caught up in a supernatural mess while trying to find her childhood friend's friend who had gone missing.

It is difficult to sell you on the game without spoiling the good bits, but the original Life is Strange was at times cringe, aggravating, but at the same time captivating with its writing. It managed to recreate a scarily accurate high school setting, though a little exaggerated at times.

I may not be able to sit through the campiness of Life is Strange now, but in 2015, the concept and story really took the internet by storm (pun intended). We've gotten quite a few more Life is Strange titles since with varying degrees of success, but none of those titles saw the return of Max Caulfield until Life is Strange: Double Exposure.

You can play as Max Caulfield once more, and she returns with a slightly modified power that lets her jump between two timelines instead of rewinding time. The entire plot of the game starts when Safi, one of her best friends, is murdered under really dubious circumstances.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure is set on the campus of Caledon University, a prominent fine arts institution where Max Caulfield currently teaches photography. Being a huge fan of the original, I had a great time seeing an adult, Max, who is still incredibly passionate about photography and still makes sarcastic comments about everything she sees.

The narrative of Life is Strange: Double Exposure starts out strong. You're given a decent introduction to the game's diverse cast of characters, and Max is portrayed in a way that sort of makes sense, considering the sort of character she was in the original and her experiences in Arcadia Bay. Her angsty teen self is more mellowed out, but her quirkiness is still here and not in a bad way.

Their handling of her personality makes sense to me. Though some of the choices you can make as her don’t really line up with her character, she feels mature in a believable manner and feels like a nice development of the character.

Since this is a choice-based game, you can play the game however you want or in whatever way Max finds more suitable. She is, in my opinion, brilliantly represented. It is the cast surrounding her that lets Max's character writing down, but I will get into that later.

The game cozies you up with wintery vibes and friendly smiles and drops the murder of Max's friend on you. This leads to Max discovering that her supernatural powers are back once again, which lets her jump straight into an alternate timeline.

Max had vowed to never use her powers after what happened in the original title, but the suspicious murder of her friend and reawakening of her powers couldn't let her sit still. She can switch between a timeline where her friend is dead and one where she is not.

This multiverse murder mystery idea sees you tie the links between several incarnations of the same ensemble of people. Life is Strange: Double Exposure, in such regard, then opens strong, with a fascinating and snappy first couple of episodes, and consists of a total of five.

Unfortunately, as you dive deeper into Life is Strange: Double Exposure, everything becomes more surface-level. And though the timeline skipping appears like a neat feature at first, it soon becomes difficult to manage and causes frequent confusion when I try to follow particular events.

While the game attempts to direct you in the correct way, the phone-style interface is difficult to navigate. Even the task page is uninteresting and often displays inaccurate objectives. The journal tab is artsy and gives dimension to Max's character, but the texting and overall UI are unclear.

As a fan of the series, the nostalgia felt in the beginning didn't last long. The game soon became tiring. It doesn't help that you're continuously repeating the same moments, which are doubled owing to the two timelines.

In addition, the setting of the Caledon University campus pales in comparison to previous towns such as Arcadia Bay and Haven Springs. The game takes place in only a few settings, but all of them fail to capture the vibes of a university campus. We never see student housing, a crowded cafeteria, or even a class in session.

There are NPCs scattered around who you can speak with, but it feels rather isolated in comparison to previous seasons. While Life is Strange: True Colors had limited settings, you still got a sense of the entire town, which isn't the case here.

However, it is not only in the settings that are limited; it extends to the characters as well. While a few of them I found interesting, such as Gwen, or just lovable, such as Moses, the social interactions feel a little awkward because Max treats students and coworkers equally.

It felt very easy to forget Max was a teacher at Caledon since she was texting students and didn't really have any adult relationships with the other teachers. While it isn't entirely detrimental to the characters themselves, it takes a bit away from some of the believability of the setting that felt so well done in the earlier seasons.

Barring Safi and Moses, there is just not much to like among the rest of the cast. The relationship between Max and Chloe in the original title was done well, but I could feel none of the same vibes with any of the potential romantic interests in this title.

Her students don't really seem to address her as a teacher much, and her friends keep awkwardly hitting on her. This gives sort of an awkward vibe, which even permeates all other interactions that end up not feeling all that engaging. Everything is just shallow. Plus, the game tends to drag in the middle, with a lot of repetitive dialogue and exposition that slows down the story's momentum.

Although the game contains some striking moments, the main mystery ultimately becomes a bit overly dependent on Max’s supernatural abilities. Somehow, Life is Strange has always been able to strike the ideal balance between its grim plot and subject matter and the characters' more exotic abilities.

I never once questioned whether the protagonist's abilities were real in True Colors or the original game. But at this point, Max's powers and the way she uses them feel cheaply written.

Life is Strange is the perfect series to catch the young adult demographic, but the “gripping” feeling has really never been there. Unlike other titles where supernatural abilities have unraveled some pretty sinister secrets or mysteries, Life is Strange: Double Exposure gets caught up in keeping things hidden so heavily that it is a bit overboard. The major reveals felt a tad flat since it detracts from the darker and more grounded tone of the previous games.

Visually, Life is Strange: Double Exposure looks pretty good. The way the colors are used between the timelines is very apparent—the one where Safi is dead has a cooler tone, and the one where she's alive is warmer. The characters' movements during conversations and expressions are done quite well, too. For a narrative-heavy title like this, the expressions are nice to see.

The soundtrack of Life is Strange: Double Exposure is also adequate, but with the story of the game being so weak, there is nothing much for it to amplify in terms of landing. It doesn't help that there are some audio glitches that take you out of it, either.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure is yet another addition to the series that never quite hit the same highs after its initial success with the original. This title feels like the series at its lowest. Not even the return of the beloved main character of the first game was enough to save just how shallow the writing of the game feels after episode 2. I cannot recommend this game to someone who loved the original, not even as the standalone title it tries to be.