I have never been the biggest Life is Strange fan, the first game had something interesting going on, but the episodic release cadence was something I was well over. The subsequent games have had intriguing premisses, but again I just never found myself playing the games. But there was something about this new one that I felt drawn too, maybe it’s the murder mystery part, maybe it’s the older and familiar characters. Thankfully Square Enix gave me the chance to try the game out.
As with most previews, we don’t start at the beginning of the game, that could lead to spoilers, instead we jump a few chapters ahead, where events are already unfolding. The section we got to play started with Moses sitting nervously on a chair outside of his office, with a man pacing in front of him and then Max walked in. It was a surreal to see a character again, but one that has aged up, but there as no time to dwell on that, Max was ready to support her friend. Turns out the man pacing was actually a police detective, who was investigating the murder of Safi, a friend to both Max and Moses. As you might expect, there were some story beats in this moment and I was given the chance to be cooperative or snarky and you had best believe I chose the latter.
Now I won’t say anything about the story further, in order to avoid spoiler for those who want to discover everything on their own. After talking, what was needed of me, was to break into the office guarded by the cops and retrieve something that was placed there, simple right. Well turns out it was, once I remembered the new ability of Max, being able to jump between timelines. The first thing I noticed upon jumping was that it was near seamless, now for the sake of preview it was running on a PlayStation 5, so it might be a little slower on Switch. The other thing is that the world had a colour shift, in the timeline where Safi is dead, the world is darker, with a blue tint to everything. Whereas in the world where she lives, there is a warmer tone to everything, it is a simple way to show which one you are in at a glance. The game also puts an icon above interactions, one for alive and dead, which helps keep you on track, as there are differences in objects between the timelines.
Within the other timeline, the office was no longer blocked and it was time to start working out what to do, the only problem, Moses was in there. Even though I hadn’t had talked long with Moses in the dead timeline, it was a little surreal to see him all sorts of chipper in the alive timeline. After some not-at-all weird questions, I was given a task to find an allen wrench for Moses, but the problem, there wasn’t one around me and I will admit I spent a bit of time wandering around, until I remembered I could swap timelines. Once that idea lodged itself in my head, I was able to move through the rest of the preview pretty quickly, and again I won’t say anything about puzzle I had to solve, but it was fun and I enjoyed it.
From my little time with the game, I am on board, the early games may not have been for me, but the idea of jumping across timelines, solving/preventing a murder and even a few more teases of other mysteries, is plenty for me. The swapping back and forth worked brilliantly and more importantly, fast, which meant I was able to just keep moving and that is something I appreciate. Will this convince those who didn’t like the other games to come in, I would like to think so, but I honestly haven’t seen enough to make a call either way. I will say that if you are a fan of Max and want to see more of her, then you won’t be let down with this new game.
Life is Strange: Double Exposure is out on October 15th.
STALKER, Clock Tower, Shadows of the Damned, and more.
Wii Music has been replaced