After taking over development duties from Don’t Nod, Deck Nine really made the Life Is Strange series its own with 2021’s True Colours. Now heading up Double Exposure, the developer is reaching into Don’t Nod territory by bringing back everybody’s favourite hella awkward teen, Max Caulfield, now as an adult. With a twisting and turning narrative and plenty of supernatural hijinx, how has this latest outing from Deck Nine fared? Sadly, it’s not quite the homecoming celebration we were hoping for.
Double Exposure plants its feet firmly in Caledon University Campus, a prestigious fine arts school where Max Caulfield resides as a lecturer in photography. As fans of the original, it’s a lot of fun getting to see a grown up Max, still very passionate about photography and playfully commenting on everything she sees. The real juice lies in Max’s troubled past though, with despondent messages and a guarded secrecy showing the events of Arcadia Bay still very much haunt her.
Now though with a new small group of friends and an idyllic wintry setting, Double Exposure arrives with the level of cosiness you’d expect from the series. The old Victorian university campus is coated in snow, everyone is wrapped up in warm looking jackets with friendly smiles, and the inviting colour palette had us excited to cosy up to our PS5s. But of course, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows when a body is found on campus.
After the mysterious murder of one of her friends, Max must use her time abilities – something she’d vowed never to do again – to solve the mystery. Unlike the first series, Double Exposure ditches Max’s rewind powers in exchange for two timelines. Max can switch between a timeline where her friend is dead, and one where she is not. It’s an interesting multiversal murder mystery that sees you connecting the dots between different versions of the same cast of characters.
Double Exposure starts out strong, with an intriguing and sharp first couple of episodes – there are five in total. Establishing relationships with your co-workers and students, you’ll utilise your timeline hopping abilities to bypass obstacles, wring information out of one version of a character to pry more out of the other, and piece together its central mystery.
It’s a fantastic balance in those earlier parts of the story, as you have to keep track of the type of relationship you have with each character in each timeline. You can be best friends in one timeline and sworn enemies in another – and the game will let you slip up with which version told you what if you’re not careful.
It’s made all the better thanks to the returning Max Caulfield. Never a character we felt the need to see again, a grown-up Max in Double Exposure is like running into a high school best friend. She’s just as likeable as ever, and it’s weird in a way to see her drinking at bars or talking about her sex life. But in all the right ways this still feels like the angsty teen we fell in love with in the first game, with just a dash of trauma from her past experience. And for those wondering, Double Exposure is respectfully cautious to call back too much to the first game. There’s references and moments fans of the original will enjoy, but for all intents and purposes this is a standalone adventure.
Sadly, the further into Double Exposure you delve the more surface level everything begins to appear. For one the setting of Caledon University campus is severely lacking in comparison to past towns like Arcadia Bay and Haven Springs. The entire game takes place in just a handful of settings, yet none really capture the essence of a university campus. We never see the student accommodation, a packed cafeteria, hell, we never even see a class taking place. There are NPCs dotted around that you can listen to, but it feels quite insular compared to past seasons.
And that in a way continues over to the characters. While there are some characters we find interesting like Gwen, or lovable like Moses, the playing field is flat since students and co-workers are all treated the same by Max. It’s very easy to forget that Max is even a teacher at Caledon, as she texts students and barely seems to have adult relationships with any of the other teachers. While it’s not entirely detrimental to the characters themselves, it takes away from the setting’s believability, something quickly perfected in previous seasons.
In addition, the central mystery, while it has its goosebump inducing moments, it eventually starts to feel a little too reliant on the supernatural. Life Is Strange has somehow always managed to maintain a perfect balance between its dark story and subject matter, and the more far flung powers of its protagonists. Never once during True Colours did we question the reality of a protagonist that could see and feel other people’s emotions. Yet here, Max’s abilities start to feel like something out of a young adult novel.
Sure, if there was a series to fit the young adult novel descriptor, it would be Life Is Strange, but it’s never quite felt like that before. Whereas previous seasons have had dark secrets uncovered with the aid of supernatural powers, in Double Exposure the powers are too entwined with the mystery for our liking. It takes away from that darker and somewhat grounded tone of previous seasons, and for us meant big revelations fell a little flat.
Double Exposure also lacks the emotional resonance of previous outings. While there were moments where we had a lump in our throat or thought “aww, that’s nice”, there rarely were the tear-inducing moments like Max’s final decision at the end of the first season. We’re sure some of you will find that resonance but for us, it just didn’t hit this time around.
Something Double Exposure gets so incredibly right though are the visuals. True Colours was a big step up for the series, and this outing takes it even further. The same warm colour palette is on display, and there are those flairs of artistic graphical style, but there’s a layer of realism and believability to its designs. Incredible lighting and far improved facial animations make this a properly cinematic experience at times. We were inspired to take screenshots all the time, because it’s just such a nice looking game.
There are moments when the game hands control over to you, and while everything is fairly limited gameplay wise, it all looks and runs nice enough. There’s a quality and performance mode for those that want the choice, but in this case we opted for quality with no real visual issues.
Annoyingly, Double Exposure falls short of technical perfection as the pre-release build that we experienced is plagued with audio issues. Dialogue frequently cuts in, one moment it’s drowned out by background music, the next it’s incredibly loud, and sometimes dialogue would just be completely missing from a scene. A pre-launch patch is apparently on the way, but from what we experienced this was the biggest technical drawback of Double Exposure.
Conclusion
If it seems like we’re dogging on this latest outing for the series, it’s only because we know just how unique and entertaining it can be. Double Exposure isn’t a bad game, it’s just not the series at its best. It loses some of that inviting atmosphere with Caledon paling in comparison to Haven Springs or Arcadia Bay, and its narrative suffers from an overreliance on the supernatural. But we’d be lying if we said it wasn’t great to see Max Caulfield return and we still think it’s worth checking out if you’re a fan of the series.
