During Xbox Showcase 2024, publisher Square Enix and developer Deck Nine have revealed the next entry in the Life is Strange franchise. Life is Strange: Double Exposure sees the return of Max Caulfield, the main character of the first game. Deck Nine has provided some new story and gameplay details for the game, including an extended look at gameplay.
Years after the events of Life is Strange, Max is now a photographer-in-residence at Caledon University. One night, she discovers her closet new friend, Safi, dead in the snow. As she tries to save her, she attempts to use her rewind power but it’s something she hasn’t used in years. Instead, she discovers a new ability called Shift where Max can open a way to a parallel timeline where Safi is alive, but she’s still in danger. It’s up to Max to shift between the two parallel timelines to both solve and prevent her friend’s murder.
Narrative Director Felice Kuan said that Deck Nine wanted to create “something fresh, that echoed and acknowledged Max’s past challenges, even as it moved her personal story forward. Welcoming in new players from the very beginning, while giving fans the story they didn’t know they wanted.”
“We knew that this had to be something special,” Kuan detailed further. “We also knew we had to respect the two unforgettable endings to the first chapter of Max’s story, while also crafting something new. Something fresh, that echoed and acknowledged Max’s past challenges, even as it moved her personal story forward. Welcoming in new players from the very beginning, while giving fans the story they didn’t know they wanted.”
Game Director Jonathan Stauder added, “It was very important for us that for folks entirely brand new to the franchise, and brand new to Max Caulfield as a character, that everything they need to know about her is right there in Life is Strange: Double Exposure.”
One big way Deck Nine is doing for fans of the original game is the opportunity to leave the narrative in the hands of the player. For those unfamiliar or who don’t remember, the ending of Life is Strange can drastically change depending on what choice is made.
SPOILERS AHEAD
At the end of the original Life is Strange, Max is faced with an impossible choice. She can either escape with Chloe Price, her best friend at the time and have the storm wreak havoc on the town possibly killing a number of very important people in their lives like their family and friends, or rewind time back to the beginning when Max got her powers which will result in the death of Chloe.
With things ending up in two drastically different ways, Deck Nine decided to give players the option to choose what they want and the opportunity to see what would happen.
Stauder explained, “So yes, the returning players from Max’s first adventure will remember that there is a massive decision to make at the end of that game. Results in two very different endings. And it was really important at Deck Nine, if we were gonna make another Max adventure that the game would have to respect both those endings.
Life is Strange: Double Exposure does that very thing. There’s no canon ending, in our book, to the first game. Double Exposure will respect both endings in Max’s thoughts, her journal, here SMS, her interactions with other characters. What she opts to reveal about her past to her new friends. It’s all reflective of that final choice.”
Max Caulfield’s return sees the return of Hannah Telle, the voice of Max from the original game. Talking about coming back into Max’s shoes and where Max is at the start of Double Exposure and how she has changed since then, Telle said, “As Max has evolved, her powers have evolved too. She didn’t use that power for a really long time, because it creates so much devastation. So it adapted into something different. She now has this supernatural ability to move between two timelines, giving her a unique position to figure out what’s really going on with Safi’s murder.”
Stauder also detailed how Max’s new power “Shift” works and how it will facilitate gameplay. “Max’s ability to Shift between the two timelines opens up a whole slew of gameplay possibilities. Max will navigate between different two versions of the same space, and she’ll be able to use these powers to circumnavigate puzzles and discover clues about suspects she might not otherwise have access to.”
The extended gameplay look is from Chapter 1 and sees Max and her friends Safi and Moses watching a meteor shower together from the roof of the Caledon Observatory. However, things soon took a strange and deadly turn…
Life is Strange: Double Exposure is set to launch on October 29, 2024, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. The game will also be coming to Nintendo Switch, with further details to be announced.
Pre-ordering the Ultimate Edition of the game provides advanced access to Chapters 1 and 2, two weeks ahead of the release of the full game.