Life is Strangefans rejoice, we’re getting a new game.Life Is Strange: Double Exposurewasannouncedat theXboxGames Showcase and brings back the series’ original heroine, Max Caulfield, presenting a very different version of the iconic character.
Max is now older and, hopefully, wiser. She still has her powers, but hasn’t used them for years, and when she finally does, discovers she is now able to move between timelines. Her friend has been murdered, and she’s hopping between a timeline where her friend is still alive and a timeline where her friend is dead in an attempt to solve the case. It’s a fascinating premise with a lot of potential for multiversal hijinks, but I’m not so sure I’m happy about it.
The Developers Who Made Max Are No Longer Involved
To explain why, I’m going to have to get into the series' history a little bit. The first game, in which we first met Max Caulfield, was developed by Don’t Nod Entertainment, who you may also recognise as the studio behindJusantandBanishers: Ghosts of New Eden. Don’t Nod made the first game in 2015, but Deck Nine was brought on by publisherSquare Enixto make the game’s 2017 prequel, Before the Storm. Don’t Nod then made a short demo/mini-prequel called The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit in 2018, and started releasing episodes for Life Is Strange 2 the same year.
It was after this that Don’t Nod left the series officially. Inan interview with Eurogamerabout the studio’s newest game, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, studio creative director and game director Michel Koch said, “We really love what we did on Life is Strange and Life is Strange 2 but, as you know, the IP is owned by Square Enix, and at a point, we can only do what they want to do with the franchise.” Leaving Life Is Strange gave Don’t Nod the opportunity to own and publish its own work, and therefore have more creative control.
Deck Nine took over after that, releasing Life Is Strange: True Colors and the very buggy Life Is Strange Remastered Collection. I don’t think the studio has done abadjob since taking over, but True Colors felt a little abrupt pacing-wise and the remasters were largely considered unnecessary and poorly-implemented.
It’s worth reading IGN’sexcellent reportabout Deck Nine’s problems with crunch, toxic behaviour and harassment within the studio, and a recurring issue with racist dogwhistles getting incorporated into the game.
Why Choose Max?
On one hand, I see the value of bringing Max back as a protagonist. We get to see how she’s grown as a person over the years, maybe even get some additional closure on the first game’s events, and her powersarethe most compelling in the series, at least to me. The first two Life Is Strange games are my favourites, and the original game was one of the first I’d ever played that put queer teenagers front and centre. While I have my issues with the game, it was still a formative piece of media for me, and I’m very curious to see what the new game does with Max.
The fact that Max is being brought back also likely means officially canonising one of the original game’s endings, which means stating definitively if Chloe lived or died.
But at the same time, it feels extremely tone-deaf for Life Is Strange to be bringing Max back, especially under the circumstances. While Square Enix owns the franchise and can legally do whatever it wants, and it’s not uncommon for studios to work with characters they didn’t make under a franchise’s umbrella, Life Is Strange has always had new protagonists for each game. This break from the pattern feels like intentional nostalgia bait, and it rubs me the wrong way that Don’t Nod’s character is being reinterpreted by its successor, especially when the original studio left largely because it didn’t have control.
There’s no way to know for sure why Max is the next game’s protagonist – was it Deck Nine’s idea? Was it Square’s? – but the premise is intriguing enough for me to want to learn more. But there’s a bad taste in my mouth, one that only gets worse when I think about the opposition Deck Nine’s developers have had to struggle against to tell the stories they want to tell. I’ll still be playing the game, and I hope it’s good, but seeing Max in a trailer again is painfully bittersweet.
