More pointless thoughts on "Life is Strange: Double Exposure"

Spoilers for Life is Strange: Double Exposure and probably the rest of the series somewhere

As an oddball with too much free time and a fantasy-prone personality, I've been keeping a close eye on the world of Life is Strange since the release of the first two chapters of Double Exposure: the fan outrage at Deck Nine breaking up Max and Chloe in the "Sacrifice Arcadia Bay" version of events, the extent to which players have engaged with the new characters, and the fact that no one at D9 or Square thought to encrypt the game files for the subsequent chapters, such that dataminers were able to extract much (if not all) of the game's audio files to potentially reveal where the story was going. Then the game broke street date, so people out there now have played the whole game to the end while everyone else waits for the 29th/30th.

I've gone back and replayed the first two chapters, trying to make every choice the opposite of what I did in the first play through: Chloe's dead, Max is pursuing Vinh rather than Amanda, I collaborated with Loretta, sold out Lucas and fished Gwen's thumb drive out of a burning trash can. In Save File 1, Max is cautious, collegial and compassionate; in Save File 2 she's an interfering busybody with (possibly) very poor judgement. It's been fun.

Doing a second play through with different choices has addressed some of what I criticised in my previous posts, namely the under- writing, as I perceive it, of the game. There are several moments, say, with Vinh, or at a couple of introspective spots, where we get to hear some of the things I thought were otherwise missing. However, it's telling how much of the game's interesting dialogue and Max's inner monologue is stuck in these optional conversations and missable moments of reflection, rather than being a core part of the game's narrative. These choice based games have always struggled to have difficult choices which don't end up having one choice more right and the other more wrong, and it feels unsatisfying that it's possible to have a less engaging experience of the story simply by virtue of making the "wrong" choices, wrong in the sense of giving you less characterisation or narrative.

My main critiques continue to be the following:

• we don't get to know Safi and Moses enough before Safi is killed
• Max doesn't spend enough time reflecting on whether using new powers is a good idea; she seems to know that it isn't but uses them anyway because the game has to happen
• Chapter 2 doesn't spend nearly enough time dealing with what Max's feelings might be about Safi still being alive in the other timeline after spending days grieving for her

It all just feels so rushed and disconnected, evocative of the notorious time skip between chapters 2 and 3 of True Colors in which Alex, Ryan and Steph all become best friends offscreen. Given that there was supposedly some overlap in the development of the two games I have to assume that this is the result of the same behind the scenes issues at the developer. I think this is something Dontnod's games, regardless of their other faults, avoided by focusing primarily on the relationships between Max and Chloe and Sean and Daniel respectively. Deck Nine's games seem to be more about the "mystery".

It's not helped by the fact that, as of the first two chapters, Max has no one to talk to about the situation. She's constantly having to ruminate because she can't tell anyone what's happening. This is probably plausible, but it doesn't exactly make for terribly compelling writing. I kind of assumed in the lead up to the game's release that this role would be taken by Moses, but that hasn't happened yet. It'd be really interesting to have two versions of the same character in two different timelines working with Max and, via her, each other, but, again, that hasn't yet happened. It all just seems like missed opportunities.

Speaking of, what about the Chloe situation? It's been very diverting from a writing standpoint to speculate on how she could have been handled without breaking her and Max up. The only method I can think of would have been to have had the two of them long distance, maybe because they'd both gotten jobs in different parts of the country, but as I said previously this would oblige the story to come up with some very contrived reasons for why Chloe wouldn't be coming to Max's aid in this time of crisis; you would have to either make it that Chloe can't for some reason get away from where she is, or that Max stops her. Or, alternatively, you write Chloe in as a full blown main character who nonetheless only appears if you choose for her to be alive, which would be a huge hassle and most realistically completely alter the game's story in that course of events. I think it just demonstrates that either they shouldn't have made the game about Max or they should have only followed one ending, probably "Sacrifice Chloe". You would practically have to end up making a whole other game in the "Sacrifice Arcadia Bay" timeline to avoid this dilemma; as I said in my first post on the game, it's pretty implausible that both endings of the original game would ultimately lead Max back to the same place. Given that this game sets up Chloe as a roadie, the only way I can think you would make the "long distance" thing work would have been if Chloe was in a radically different time zone, on tour with the band, in Eastern Europe or something, such that getting back to the States was impractical, and maybe that Max downplayed the seriousness of the situation to avoid worrying her, which could be used for added drama later.

The speculation floating around is that the reason Chloe's not in the game is because Square Enix think audiences won't accept the character without Ashly Burch in the role and that they won't work with her for some reason, but I suspect it's probably quite simply because she's a SAG-AFTRA member whereas the voice work for every Life is Strange game apart from the first one (and "Farewell") has been a non-union production. Chloe's other voice actor, Rihanna DeVries, is very good, and reprised the role (briefly) in "Wavelengths" as well as this, so I think it's more likely that they couldn't figure out how to have her in the game meaningfully or didn't want to include her substantially because they weren't as attached to her as many of the fans are. I'm not really sure. I think it's unlikely that we'll never see Chloe again. The situation reminds me of what happened with the comic books, with which some fans were disappointed because they weren't just about Max and Chloe living their lives together. I understand why people would feel this way, and maybe the story that they went with in those wasn't the best source of drama, but I get that you have to do something with the relationship to make it worth telling a story about. Nonetheless I can't help but feel that the approach taken in Double Exposure is, at best, clueless, and at worst mean-spirited. Of course fans shouldn't just be given what they want, but there was probably a way to keep everyone somewhat happy if the people in charge of this project had handled the game more thoughtfully. Even if there were one or two optional scenes in which Max and Chloe did a video call or something and you had the choice to be honest with Chloe about what was going on and how you were feeling about it, or hid the truth to avoid worrying her, would have probably been enough for a lot of people, I think. You don't even have to lock off the optional romances here as this could still work with the "just friends" choice. I'm imagining something similar to the optional/determinant scene with Kate in Episode Four of the original game. Then I guess you run into the problem of Max having to tell Chloe what's going on (optionally) in both timelines, but you could use the entangle power or something as a way around that. It's not insurmountable, but I can see why it would be difficult and many developers would think it wasn't worth the effort.

Between the leaks and early release, the fan reaction, the dubious "ultimate edition", and the damaging IGN article about the behind the scenes troubles at Deck Nine, the whole thing seems like a bit of a debacle, but I get the impression that that's not terribly unusual in the video game industry in its current state. I don't want to see this series die, because I think even the weaker instalments are generally decent, but I also don't want it to become an embarrassment. Only the hardcore fans are probably even following what's going on at the moment, and the majority of the audience won't get on board until the official release date, so it may all prove inconsequential. It remains to be seen what official sales numbers say, as I think given the game's visuals, voice work and sound the reviews are probably going to be decent regardless of whether or not the story ends up actually being as bonkers as the leaks are hinting at. And I'm still glad that Hannah Telle got to play Max once more; the whole thing was worth it for that if nothing else. Ultimately, this has got me obsessing over Life is Strange again, so I guess it's done its job. At least it gives me the motivation to write.