Game Rant recently played about 40 minutes of Life is strange: double exposure at Gamescom, set shortly after the opening events. At the time of our demo, Max had already discovered his new Shift powers and had begun investigating Safi’s death. However, there is a drawback. As Detective Vince Alderman investigates Safi’s death, he believes a lost camera may be the key, but Moses took that camera and hid it in his university lab. It is believable that Moisés, a friend of Max and Safi, took it for sentimental reasons, but the police are unlikely to believe this. As such, Max must use his Shift powers to obtain that camera.
Life is Strange: Double the exposition, double the characters, double the puzzles
The demo began when we spoke to Moses to find out why he was sitting outside his lab, learning about the camera and promising to get in there and get it before Alderman could. He was waiting for maintenance to arrive and open the lab, presumably because Moses didn’t have or didn’t have a key. Obviously, this was the first time we met Alderman and he was feeling a little down. Even if they weren’t all suspects to us, he’d be a standout: he gives off dirty cop vibes. We suspect it may actually be a red herring to the real one. Life is strange: double exposure antagonist, but he’s an antagonist anyway.
We were then able to look around the school outside of the lab, being mostly limited to a single point where we could use our Shift power to return to the timeline where Safi is alive. The setting was very similar, but Moses’ office was open and he was there working with a telescope. To ensure that the two timelines were obvious to players, there was a logo present in each dialogue and an indicator at the top of the screen to indicate whether it was the ‘Safi is alive’ or ‘Safi’ timeline. she’s dead.’
In the second timeline, our goal was to find out where Moses would hide things in his office. There were a few dialogue options with this version of Moses, including one to explore his friendly relationship and others to directly or indirectly ask where she would hide something in his office. We get the answer: that he has a “fire hazard” with a teapot hidden in a safe that we’ve never seen, but then the telescope almost falls over and he gets caught holding it. He asks us to find a colleague, Carla, to recover the Allen key she lent him. Not having time for that, we found a Shift spot at the top of a staircase in his lab and returned to the other timeline, sneaking into his dark office with Moses and Alderman outside.
When it comes to Max’s Shift powers, we’ve found two uses at the moment. The first is that key areas are marked with a bright aura where we can change timelines; However, we could also use our Shift power to see differences between two timelines, such as where the boxes were in the lab in the other one but not this one.
We managed to quickly find the Allen wrench and return it to the other timeline’s Moses, only for Max to give this Moses a dad joke: “I found a guy named Allen, but he didn’t know anything about a wrench.” If there was any doubt before, there is none now: this is an older, more mature Max, but he is still Max at heart.
Once the telescope is set up, we ask Moisés for some tea and watch him take the teapot out of the safe. We also talked to him about some writing on the wall, something related to star constellations, and this was an important note. We also see him leave the key. He apologizes after a few moments, allowing us to take the key and return to the other timeline. Upon opening the safe, assuming that Safi’s camera would be there, we found a simple note. That note wasn’t on the other timeline, meaning it was probably a clue. After a little more playing, we discovered that the note related to a specific star, lit the room with the space projector, lined it up, and saw the camera in a vent beneath that star.
However, it is blocked by some large boxes, and Alderman has managed to enter the office at this point. Not only do we need to move large boxes somehow without his attention, but we also need to avoid getting caught. We travel back to the Living timeline to collect some noisy Christmas decorations and return to the Dead. Life is strange: double exposure timeline, and used it to draw their attention to the other side of the room. However, to deal with the problem of the boxes, Max managed to manifest a new use of his Shift power: we managed to move those boxes to the other timeline, apparently replacing them with the telescope. Switching items between the two timelines will certainly add a lot of new gameplay factors, but here we managed to grab the camera, travel back to the Alive timeline, and return to the Dead timeline to meet up with a Moses now. sure.
The demonstration ended with this Councilman asking us to let him know if we knew something, especially if we already knew something. Once again, he gave off dirty cop vibes and we were presented with a choice: tell him we would or tell him we wouldn’t. That, no doubt, you will remember.
Life is Strange: Double Exposure Powers and Trauma Develop Throughout the Game
After our demo, we had the opportunity to speak with game director Jonathan Stauder and writer Aysha Farah. When it comes to Max, they talked a lot about how she had matured but how they tried to keep her Max in the heart. They also talked about how the first life is strangeThe ending colors his trauma. The team has already made it clear that no life is strange the ending is canon; instead, players can reflect on those events through Max’s journal. We asked if this had more flavor or still impacted gameplay, and Stauder explained that it definitely impacts gameplay because “a core idea is that no matter what ending you get, Max has this trauma that he has to process.” That trauma influences Max’s development throughout the game.
As Max processes that development, his powers also develop throughout the game. We were assured that his new Shift powers are related to his old Time Rewind powers; It is an evolution, not a completely new power. And his powers grow throughout the game. Just as we saw Max discover the ability to shift elements between timelines, Stauder explained that there would be “more permutations” of Shift depending on circumstances like intense action sequences, chase sequences, detective scenes, etc.
Life is strange: double exposure releases in October, which creates a lot of anticipation because it arrives so soon. With this demo, at least, it’s clear that the game understands who Max is, understands the fandom’s general desires surrounding the ending of the first game, and continues to move forward with exciting supernatural and “real world” developments for Max.
