The narrative-based game Life Is Strange: Double Exposure came out on Oct. 29, 2024, and was the sixth installment of the Life Is Strange series. The game was highly anticipated, as it saw the return of the fan-favorite, time-traveling protagonist from the first game, Max Caulfield. This is the first time in the series that a protagonist from a previous game was thrown into the spotlight again.
Despite the game looking promising at first, it failed to deliver on the hype and turned out to be a disappointing game.
There are things to like about the game, such as Hannah Telle’s amazing performance as Max. She doesn’t miss a beat in her return to play the character; she gives it her all in every scene. The graphics are also the best they have ever been. Developers Deck Nine Games and Engine Software used motion capture for the game, which helps players see a lot of the emotion some of the characters are going through.
On the topic of characters, there are not many good ones, but one of the best is Moses Murphy. Max spends most of the game interacting with Moses, and all around, he is the most likeable character outside of Max herself.
Max’s new power is also a very interesting concept that gets adapted well. Her new power sees her traveling through different timelines: one where her friend Safi is dead and another where she is alive.
That’s about everything to like about the game, as the cons outweigh the pros.
The first thing most fans will notice is the absence of Chloe Price, Max’s best friend. The writers came up with the excuse that Max and Chloe separated sometime after the first game if the player chose the ending where the two ended up together. This is where a problem arises — it ruins that choice from the first game and makes it irrelevant.
Moving past that point, the other characters besides Moses are disappointing as they are middle-of-the-road, bland or straight-up bad. Characters like Reggie, Diamond, Amanda, Loretta and Gwen are just middle-of-the-road characters.
Vinh is one of the worst characters in the game. He’s just not likeable. And surprisingly, Safi is not a good character either. She starts out decently in Episode 1, prompting players to want to get to know her more, but by the end of the game, she turns more into a villain — which the game never frames her as.
The choices in the game are also not impactful. It's a game series where choices are supposed to matter, but you don’t get that here. The final choice is laughably bad and lacks the emotional impact that the other games' final choices have.
There is also very little world-building in this game, which it desperately needs, as the world around Max seems very dull. In the first game, players had a whole town to explore and got to see how different characters — even minor ones — lived their lives. It felt like a real world.
But in this game, players see three or four settings throughout the whole game with background characters that don’t matter.
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One other huge issue with the game is the story. The first three episodes take players on an engaging murder mystery as Max jumps through timelines to figure it out. By the end, however, the game seems to forget what it started as and turns into a jumbled mess of plots. The ending seems lackluster and forced.
Life Is Strange: Double Exposure’s biggest issue is that it tends to focus more on the powers aspect than the story aspect. In the end, there are hints about having an Avengers-level meet up between other characters in the series who have powers, but that simply is not Life Is Strange — which is why this game is easily a 4/10.
Rodney Prunty is the sports editor for the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at sports@dailylobo.com or on X @rprunty05
