Double Exposure, and the legacy of Life is Strange.

January 2015, a whopping eleven years ago, saw the release of the first episode of Life is Strange. Published by Square Enix, and developed by French studio Don't Nod (Dontnod at the time), it was a time traveling teen drama that released episodically across the year. Focused on protagonist Max Caufield (Hannah Telle) and her former best friend/potential love interest Chloe Price (Ashly Burch), it was an adventure game, I guess? You talked to people, made story decisions, rewound time to solve puzzles and unsay stupid stuff and... Well, honestly it feels silly to describe it this way, like I'm trying to introduce the concept of Life is Strange to someone. If what I wrote here is somehow someone's first introduction to this series... I guess I'd recommend playing them first!

In all seriousness, I don't actually know just how big, or far reaching the cultural impact of Life is Strange is. Certainly in my circles, it feels like it's an important game to a whole “generation” of gaymers, or queer gamers, if my “clever” wordplay is too “subtle.” Obviously not just us queers like it, I'm saying that anecdotally, the biggest, most dedicated fans of this series in general are queer in one way or another.

I'm not going to sit here and try to say that Life is Strange did anything “first,” or necessarily even better than other games, certainly not in terms of queer representation. But it is something that a lot of people, myself included, latched onto, and were compelled by. Because to a certain extent, there's little else out there that has hit in exactly the same way it did. Even the rest of the series, and some of them I would argue are objectively better in a lot of ways! Yet, that original game in that time at that moment, just hit.

And I didn't even play it in 2015, my initial exposure was through Giant Bomb East's playthrough. I did eventually, and notably made a few different decisions, including the big one. In the time since then, I played the Chloe focused prequel Before the Storm in 2017, this time from Deck Nine, rather than Don't Nod. Rather infamously, due to the actors' strike at the time, Ashly Burch did not return to reprise her role, because she's too upstanding a guild member to have crossed the picket line. Her replacement, Rhianna DeVries, scab or not, did a great job, even if her performance will always be in the shadow of someone who has gone on to be a much better known, and more prolific actor.

Ashly Burch did return (along with Hannah Telle) for the bonus prequel to the prequel episode later, which was nice. Even if that episode was kind of laughable with stuff like ending on Max leaving town literally minutes after Chloe's dad's funeral. I'm not exaggerating, or joking, that's how it ends! Which is a shame because those first two episodes of Before the Storm are still probably the best, and highest highs of the whole franchise. Too bad episode 3 (the finale) felt so messy, which I still blame on them rushing it out before the end of the year, and having to instead spend that later time on the bonus episode.

Then Don't Nod returned for Life is Strange 2 in 2018 (and 2019), which I still haven't played. I know I should, but... I don't want to say I haven't because it's the only one where you don't play a lesbian, but that doesn't help. Really it was the fact that the episodic releases bit this game in the butt, going way too long between them, especially when I remember seeing not so great stuff about the first episode or two. The people that stuck with it seemed to like where it went on the whole, but...

From there Don't Nod left the franchise (and working with Square) behind, and have mostly moved on to doing different sorts of games. Arguably better ones overall, too. I'd say even if they didn't impact me as much emotionally, I think Vampyr and Jusant are better games than Life is Strange. Also, let's not talk about Lost Records, a pretty poor attempt to recapture Life is Strange's supernatural teen lesbian drama from a different Don't Nod branded studio. So, Deck Nine became the Life is Strange team, with True Colors in 2021 (which I think is overall the best game in the series), and most recently 2024's Double Exposure.

Sorry for the preamble, but sometimes the stage needs to be set properly. Max Caufield returns as protagonist, with Hannah Telle reprising what at this point I think is easily her best known role. Or...only notable role? I shouldn't be rude, even having one iconic character is better than a lot of actors get, and she's great in it. And while there are a few lines from Chloe in the form of flashback/memory type stuff, she's never seen on screen (other than an old photo), and it was Rhianna DeVries again.

Max at the local bar.

Despite this series meaning a lot to me, I obviously didn't play Double Exposure at launch. The reception was...mixed, let's say. So even though it released at a “budget” $50 (listen, when $70 is the norm and Mario Kart is $80, $50 does start to feel “budget”), I waited for a price drop. $20 on Black Friday felt a lot better, but I only got around to playing it in January.

I know how all this sounds. Franchise that means a lot to me, but this one didn't get a great rap, and I waited so long before getting to it. Specifically talking about the price I paid, it probably sounds like I didn't like it, and yet, despite the odds... I did?

This is such a...strange one to write about, particularly because I'm so curious about how this game came to be. About the decision to bring Max back, and at what point in development was it made. Not to get ahead of myself, but while I really think her inclusion wasn't quite a last minute change, I don't think the initial premise included her.

Yet the only stuff I've found was all pre-release, and focused on the working conditions at Deck Nine. I'd read this article from Rebekah Valentine before, but it was honestly worth reading again. I won't rehash the whole thing here, just important to remember that the vibe a studio gives from what it makes can be, and probably often is very different from the reality of working there. Also as a friend pointed out to me recently, this article does spoil some stuff from near the end of True Colors, so keep that in mind (and I think True Colors is still well worth playing).

I should say, while I will be fairly light with spoilers about Double Exposure, there's at least a couple things I need to mention, but will also be spoiling stuff from the previous games. Mostly that original.

Anyway, Double Exposure. Though it never says so directly in game, I believe it's set about a decade after the original. Now in her late twenties, after spending years drifting from place to place, Max finds herself working as a photographer in residence at scenic Caledon University. Nestled deep in the snowy heart of Vermont, the story begins at the start of December. Right as Max's first semester is wrapping up, and everyone is getting ready for the end of year festivities, never mind a well deserved break.

Not long in, the player is presented with the first major choice of the game, which is effectively deciding the only decision that mattered in the original game: Did Max save Chloe, or Arcadia Bay? I could write a whole essay about my feelings on how that game wrapped up, but the short version is I don't care for the fact that either way it renders literally every previous decision meaningless. And here...I don't think it changes too much of what happens in Double Exposure, though I didn't play it a second time to see.

Because, as I said earlier, either way Chloe doesn't show up in person here. If, like me, you chose that she's still alive, she and Max broke up at some point along the way, so she's out doing her own thing. A decision that Ashly Burch herself has publicly stated she would have done differently if she wrote this game!

The only things that change in Double Exposure are some posts on the in game social media (including from Chloe if she's still alive), and the occasional bit of dialog from Max. In the moment I'm sure some of those conversations can feel different from each other, but again, I've only seen them the one way.

Safi and Max.

So, if Chloe is a no-show, what is Double Exposure about? Well, much like how the story of the original really had more to do about Chloe, Rachel, and Arcadia Bay at large than Max, here it's more about Max's new best friend Safi (Olivia AbiAssi). Safi, and her intricate relationships with the rest of the cast at Caledon. The daughter of Caledon's president and a teaching assistant (TA) in the Lit department (focused on poetry), she's the glue that keeps the new circle of friends Max has clung onto together.

Naturally, since this isn't Life is Normal, someone has to get murdered, and that someone is Safi. Now, despite being right nearby and her previous game focusing on time travel abilities, in the decade since Max has let her power atrophy, and thus can't rewind time to save her friend. She does however, after multiple days of (justifiably) moping, discover she can move between timelines, and enter an alternate one where Safi is still alive and well. And from there, you solve Life is Strange puzzles, unearth a lot of melodrama between the TAs and professors, eventually getting to the bottom of what happened. I won't spoil it beat for beat, but I will say it kept me engaged throughout.

It certainly sounds like a good set up for one of these games, but in some ways it feels like a lot of stuff is just missing. I am going to spoil some stuff here, but trust me when I say even though it will sound like this is important to the main story, it ultimately isn't.

Safi was killed, with a gunshot to the chest. As one might expect, the police get involved, particularly a state cop (as in his jurisdiction is the state of Vermont, for those outside the US) named Alderman (Brian Landis Folkins). His primary suspect is Safi and Max's other best friend, Moses (Blue Allen). Some of that is likely racial profiling (a subject the game brings up, but smartly doesn't linger on), but also because he was one of the last two people to see Safi alive (the other being Max).

This leads to the most intricate Life is Strange type puzzle in the game, where Max needs to hop between timelines to retrieve something potentially incriminating from Moses' lab in the astronomy department before Alderman finds it. I don't know if it's possible to fail this sequence and if that affects the story in any way, but I got through it no problem, deftly avoiding the obnoxious motion activated singing Christmas hotdog.

Max can see into the other timeline at will.

Alderman shows up exactly twice more in this game. Once at Max's (cavernous) house on campus, and finally at the scene of the crime. Max (in her infinite wisdom) decided to call Moses there to explain her powers to him, and Alderman crashed the party. This is where it gets...strange. While Alderman is doing his cop thing, yelling, waving his gun around, etc, a ghostly second Alderman appears? It's supposed to be a version of him from the past, because it being him from the other timeline wouldn't make sense as Safi is still alive there, thus no investigation, etc, but that's not important. The two Aldermans come into contact, and reality unravels between them. The player is given the choice of trying to help pull him out or not, but even if you do he doesn't make it.

This certainly sounds important, huh? I thought it would be! Instead, this is just a flashy way of writing the cop out of the story, and literally erasing him from time. Moses is tasked with investigating what happened, and finding more information about Alderman, but all of that happens off screen. Even when he presents his findings to Max, it's just over text messages the player can easily ignore. No voice acting.

Even the concept of someone coming into contact with another version of themself from another time or whatever, does not matter.

And I get similar vibes from a lot of things across this game. Like, take Max's place in Caledon, for example. She's a photographer, with some of her pieces on display in the Fine Arts Building, she supposedly gives seminars that students attend, and even grades work that they submit. Aside from the pictures in the FAB, none of this is ever shown. We don't even see Max's office, assuming she even has one! While a couple students who attend her seminars are minor characters, no one else who works in anything photography related at the university is ever seen, or mentioned. Is Max the entirety of the photographic art department? Sure, you can actually take photos in this game, and even use the titular Double Exposure technique, but it's still only for set “collectibles.”

This, combined with the fact that all the drama, and the core of the mystery centers around students and professors in the literature department makes me think Max wasn't always going to be the protagonist. It really feels like the original concept was supposed to be a new character who would also be working in the Lit department. Other than Moses (an astrophysicist), all the other main characters are tied to Lit in some way or another. That, or they work in administration, but mostly Lit.

Never mind that Max has a different power than in the first game.

Now, this isn't me saying Max was hastily written in at the last minute. There is still just enough stuff, especially later on that does feel pertinent to Max that I think they at least put the effort in. Most importantly, Max is written like Max. No, she doesn't say “wowsers” (though someone else says it to her after Max accidentally implies she'd give her oral sex!) or say she wants to watch Spirits Within on a tasty plasma. But she has that same corny sense of humor, and I'm sure regardless of how each player chose the first game ended, she still feels haunted by what happened.

Curiously, the game still presents stats for what players picked on the choices, and that one was split almost exactly fifty fifty, but with an edge for saving Chloe.

While I'm sure that Max returning, and how the game lacks Chloe is divisive (with most fans not being happy about it), Max being the protagonist is a lot of why I liked this game. While she's always been a bit of a player cipher, never the real focus of these stories, just the means for the players to experience and influence what happens, I think she's compelling in her own right. A lot of it is the performance, it's Hannah Telle making it work. Selling the corny jokes maybe not as actually funny, so much as so bad they're funny. It's her making me really feel that desperation, as she fights tooth and nail to try to save her friends, try to prevent a repeat of the horrible tragedy from a decade ago.

Sometimes you just need to go back to the murder scene to have a good think.

That one week in October 2013 that she can't escape, and in so many ways is still reliving, after all this time. This is actually the core of the reason why she and Chloe broke up. Chloe wanted to move on, live in the moment, trying to get to the future, while Max was still stuck in the past. I get it, I get why so many people (including as I said, the original voice of Chloe herself!) didn't like this. From my perspective, I see them as a couple who came together through shared trauma. They were childhood friends, but split up as kids and reunited in their late teens. That trauma of everything that happened in that one awful week, with Rachel, Jefferson, and The Storm, they took comfort and found love in each other through all that. I'm no expert on any of this, but that doesn't feel like a solid foundation for a healthy relationship, so to me it's not really surprising that they'd break up.

It's sad, but that's life. And Life is-

I know I said I enjoyed Double Exposure, and I did, but in writing this, thinking about the previous games, their legacy, re-reading what I wrote about them... It brings into focus why Double Exposure is still pretty disappointing. So, time to rewind and look at those games, again.

The original Life is Strange is a deeply flawed game. Despite its having a stylized look, I think it looked bad at the time, and has not held up great. It's mostly the faces, and the poor animations. The writing was criticized for its bizarre attempts at teen dialog back then, but I think what stands out more now (having rewatched GB East's playthrough when it hit a decade old) is how video game-y it feels. Take the scene where Max has to talk Kate back from the literal edge, when she is about to attempt suicide. This is an iconic, in many ways still incredible scene. I'm sure it isn't literally unique in video games, but I struggle to think of anything else like it. And yet, half of what Kate says is reiterating all the choices Max made that either helped, or hurt her. It feels stitched together, and if it weren't for the great performance from Dayenne Hutton, it'd be robotic.

Except somehow, despite these shortcomings, it worked. Partly because of the ambition of including a scene like this at all, let alone making it the one time in the game where Max's rewind stalls out. She can't undo her way into a better outcome here.

Nothing in Double Exposure feels ambitious. I'm not saying that every Life is Strange needs to be dealing with stuff like trying to prevent a suicide, and to be honest the suicide of a character prior to Max arriving at Caledon is very important to the story, so it's not like Deck Nine was afraid to broach the subject at all. And the writing overall feels so much more natural than that original game, never mind how much better visually it looks. The faces barely moved back then, whereas now Max is expressive in ways that 2015 Dontnod could only dream of.

Yet...nothing hits here in the way it did back then.

When I wrote about Before the Storm in 2017, I really emphasized how well it captured that feeling of not just being queer, but the self discovery of that realization. Better than any other game I'd played at the time, and nothing has come close since. How deeply I felt that, and how much it resonated with me. That, and just how beautiful the best moments between Chloe and Rachel were, particularly when they share the stage in their performance of The Tempest.

Chloe and Rachel in Before the Storm.

That, and how betrayed I felt at the game's end, when they had to dig the knife in and remind me not just that this relationship was doomed, but doomed in such an awful way. Plus the frustration at how much of it clearly felt like it was written with these two falling in love with each other, yet the option to be “just friends” is still there, “for player choice.” I even included a quote about that from BtS's lead writer Zak Garris, which is funny in retrospect after reading that previously linked article about the toxic workplace at Deck Nine. Let's just say Garris features heavily in it, and it sounds like the studio is much better off without him!

Of note, about the game's queer representation, I wrote this back then: “We deserve better than a small handful of games throwing us scraps, only to reveal they were poisoned to begin with.”

If the queerness in games like Before the Storm were scraps, then Double Exposure...is like when you go over to a friend's house and eat a bunch of junk food. It tastes good in the moment, and you go home feeling full, but little of it had substance.

Very early on in Double Exposure, like right after the intro, Max gets flirted with by Amanda (Samantha Bowling), the local lesbian bartender. Being the quintessential clueless lesbian stereotype herself, she didn't even realize it until Safi pointed it out to her. Thus, the next objective is to walk around the bar, talking to people and checking out the décor in an attempt to learn about and then woo Amanda. I managed to succeed, with a “so bad it's good” pickup line provided by Safi being the linchpin to secure the date. Except, much like how “player choice” meant you could still pick the “just friends” option in BtS, even after wooing, Amanda asks if this is a date thing, or a hangout thing, and either option is available.

Amanda and Max.

Of course I went with the lesbian option, but it's still a little frustrating that these games can't actually commit to this. The same thing with Chloe, even if you picked the Chloe lived choice, Max's relationship with her is part of a different choice. Whether they were high school sweethearts, or say it with me everyone, “just friends.” And I get it, I'm sure there's people out there who played the original game and didn't think the two of them had those sorts of feelings for each other, so it's not the end of the world to present that option here, for them.

But at a point it feels silly when this whole scene is very clearly written to be about asking this woman out on a date, only to then provide the option to make it hetero. I don't even mind that Amanda asks the question, I think it's totally reasonable to want to clarify that before the two of them actually go out. I wouldn't blink an eye at that in real life. Nor do I mind that there's another romantic interest who is a guy, and that the game lets you have the romance (kiss) scene with both them of (individually). I'm bi, having bi representation matters too! It feels pretty good to see a character I have been so attached to for so long be canonically bi. I might have even gone that route if Vinh (Sam Oguma) wasn't (intentionally) kind of a prick. Like, he's a good character for the role he fills in the story, but not someone I'd want to go on a date with. Even though he is cute.

Speaking of bi representation, if you don't kiss him, he ends up hooking up with another guy anyway, which I think is cute and a better outcome for the two of them anyway. That brings me to why this game, unlike the queer scraps a decade ago, left me feeling full. Almost everyone in this game is some combination of queer and people of color. Now, I'm white, but I know from my friends, reading what others have written, and being able to extrapolate from what queer representation means to me, to know that sort of representation matters!

And I'm glad! I wish more games were this diverse, and that the ones that are felt as natural about it as this one does. To me at least, it never really feels like it beats you over the head with this stuff. Yes, it's pretty obvious that Moses is black, but it's a lot less obvious that he has a boyfriend. That's a detail I would have missed if I wasn't reading all the texts and social media posts, and even there, it feels natural, just parts of conversations that come up like they would for real people. I guess there's some instances where the game focuses a little too obviously on Lucas (Marco Alberto Robinson) having Puerto Rican flag, a but that's the “worst” of it.

Bi lighting Max.

Not to just bring it back to queerness, but I greatly appreciate there is a trans character in this game, who was played by a trans actress! Gwen (Rachel Crowl) is pretty important to the story, but also not just the boilerplate trans stereotypes. Yes, she's a lesbian with a wife, but she's also middle aged and has a voice that sounds like she was a pack a day smoker for twenty years. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but she has the same gravelly laugh that my aunt who used to smoke a lot has. If you told me a game set in a liberal arts university had a trans character in it, Gwen isn't what I would imagine, but I like her a lot.

So yeah, I was left feeling full, but none of it has the impact those older games did. The scene where Max and Amanda go on their date (or more accurately, imagine what the date they had to cancel would have been like) is sweet, and funny, and I like it! But it doesn't have the same feeling that Chloe and Rachel on stage did.

It didn't fill me with a glowing, genuine warmth of happiness like the relationship between Alex and Steph in True Colors did. That was a game that made me feel happier than I had in years, and truly happier than I have in the years since.

Steph and Alex from True Colors.

Whereas Double Exposure...is fine. I enjoyed it. If I had to pick between good and bad, I'd say good, but it's not what any of those other games were. Each of them had a meaningful, lasting impact on me, whereas this one's just...fine. Sure, the original and BtS may have been scraps in some ways, but even a scrap can feel like a feast when you're starving. Sorry I keep going back to the food metaphor, but it works. What I want is more akin to True Colors, which feels like a balanced, healthy meal!

And Double Exposure might just be junk food, but I still enjoyed it! I like the characters, I think the acting is really great across the board, to the extent that I felt the need to mention the actor for every character as they came up. There's some annoying technical issues (audio cut out a couple times, it crashed once, other oddities) and the game feels low budget in many ways, but I think that's because they focused on making sure other areas looked good. Again, while Death Stranding 2 it ain't, I can't stress enough how well the faces animate here, especially compared to where the series began. The core mystery kept me engaged throughout, even if it felt like a lot of stuff was cut. And there's at least one instance where a character goes off the rails and does something that I thought was out of character.

After a decade since that first game, it felt good to be Max Caufield again. To see the world through her camera lens, to hear her corny jokes, and to hopefully help guide her through all this mess. I'm glad I played it, but I get why a lot of people didn't like it. I'm sure if I played it right at launch, and didn't know to go in with low expectations, I probably would have felt a lot worse about it.

Beary cute outfit.

So, where does that leave Life is Strange? Double Exposure ends with a post credits teaser, and an MCU/007 style, “Max Caufield will return.” For exactly one day, my feeling was a very strong, “will she??” As I did not think this game sold well enough to convince Square to greenlight another, but then the universe, it turns out, was just waiting for me.

Literally the day after I finished it, “Life is Strange: Reunion” leaked, thanks to everyone's favorite European ratings board, PEGI. Now, I wrote the majority of this prior to the official announcement, meaning I had to re-write my speculation because I was too lazy to post this before. Not that my feelings are really any different, because the leak was entirely spot on.

Chloe is back! Reunited with Max, as one could guess from the title. For better or worse Rhianna DeVries is doing the voice, and I'm sure she'll do a good job, even if I'll still wish it was Ashly. Apparently both Max and Chloe will be playable, with both Max's iconic rewind and Chloe's not so iconic “Backtalk” mechanics returning too! Yeah, I forget about the Backtalk thing from BtS too.

As an aside, Max being able to rewind again only reinforces my theory that Double Exposure wasn't originally going to be her. They had to write around it before because she was added too late in development, but obviously the sequel was written about her, so here we are!

Listen, I'm not letting my hopes get too high on this one, especially after playing Double Exposure, but...I'm going to play this. They're explicitly advertising it as a finale to both Max and Chloe's story, so I gotta! Even if it's just more junk food, doesn't live up to the heights of what the series used to be, that's not the end of the world.

I do, however, expect that this is more than just the end for Max and Chloe. Given where Square is at these days, and just the general climate considering the ongoing downfall of society, I don't think there's going to be another Life is Strange after Reunion. This sort of mid to low tier budget game, with such an emphasis on queer characters and the like, just doesn't feel like something any of the big publishers like Square would be interested in any more.

Though honestly I have never understood Square in the slightest, when nothing ever meets their impossible sales expectations and they keep saying they want to use “AI” to save time and money. Just fingers crossed Deck Nine didn't resort to that with Reunion. Considering they already had layoffs after Double Exposure, with fewer people I wouldn't be surprised if someone in management tried to force that on the studio. I do also fear that even if Reunion somehow sells far beyond what it realistically will, Deck Nine will be facing more layoffs, or worse, but that's outside any of our hands.

I just hope Reunion ends in a good place. I don't think I need to repeat myself about how much Max and Chloe mean to me, because I know they mean so much to a lot of people out there. Probably to anyone who bothered to read this all the way to the end! As fitting as it would be for the game to collapse on itself and end poorly just like that original and BtS, I'd rather it didn't! Either way I'm sure I'll still be annoyed by it letting them be “just friends” for “player choice,” but I'll live. Again, I say it every time, been saying it for I don't know how many years now, the real games that tell the types of stories I want to see are in the indie scene. I just don't do the work to seek them out, at least not as much as I should.

Anyway, I've said about all I can about Double Exposure. I could go into more nitty gritty about the story, but I've made the points I want to make. I definitely thought about doing a full retrospective like I did with Devil May Cry last year, but if I commit to that, it won't be done until Reunion is out, and I have enough of a backlog as it is.

Thanks as always for reading, and stay safe out there. That part is more important than ever. <3