Life is Strange: Double Exposuresees players return to the role of Max Caulfield, this time as an older and more mature woman (although her quirks remain the same). Since the first game, Max has all but abandoned her powers, dealing with the trauma ofLife is Strange’s two endingsin her own way. However, when a close friend named Safi is murdered, she tries again to save her. Max’s time-rewind powers, however, have been replaced with new Shift powers that let her manipulate two different timelines: one where Safi is dead and one where Safi is alive. That mystery is no doubt the driving force behind the game, but fans no doubt have a lot of questions heading into its October release.
At Gamescom, Game Rant sat down withLife is Strange: Double Exposuredirector Jonathan Stauder and writer Aysha Farah to talk about the demo we played, the development of powers in the franchise, and of course, the big thing in bringing back Max Caulfield.The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: This is the first full-blown direct sequel in the Life is Strange franchise. How did you approach the challenges behind that?
Stauder:When we start these games, we look at what would make an interesting power in terms of telling a character’s story, what works well turned into game mechanics, and what not. We tend to develop what that person goes through with that power. We were really interested in this new power of shifting between two timelines and seeing the differences between them. What happens when someone precious is taken away, and that ends up being a vehicle to possibly look atMax’s life after the first Life is Strange gameand process what happened.
The first game ends in that major choice, and there are about 3 to 5 minutes to act it out. There’s no processing, so with this power and Max, there’s a natural progression. There is more story to tell there.
Q: Max is back, and that’s pretty huge for the franchise. Why did you guys think now was the time for her to return? Was it just the power?
Stauder: It was kind of an egg and chicken situation where like…Max with the power, it just fits. Enough time has passed, and this idea started when you take into account the choices of the first game.
Farah: Yeah. At the time, we got to tell astory about Max, who was a teenager in the first game. She was not, as I’ve been saying, fully cooked yet, so to speak. Having this gap in time lets us come back and get to meet her as an older woman with a job and a different group of friends, stuff like that. I also think that enough time has passed from the time the game came out that the audience has sort of grown with Max, so people who loved the game as teenagers are now kind of going through the same life stage as Max.
Q: How did you approach that with the story, making sure that she was more mature in age but ensuring that she still felt like Max?
Farah:We talked a lot about this just because so much time has passed where everybody has had the chance to settle in with Max and have Max in their brain. They know who she is and remember her from the first game. We were really careful to think about the details that we knew made Max, like there were some very iconic quirks we didn’t want to lose. We didn’t want to lose the kind of corny jokes that she makes…I think we called those Dad Jokes in Double Exposure. The little puns that she does, her tendency to talk to inanimate objects, like “Hello, Mr. Plants,” little things like that.
Then, we thought she’s probably matured a little now and that she’s a little more outgoing. I think she’s a little braver when it comes to making friends and less of a wallflower than she was. She’s an instructor now instead of a student. She has this relationship where she’s responsible for some of the people around her in a way that she hasn’t been in the past.
Stauder: Another big part to make sure Max is recognizable asMax is we brought back Hannah Telle. Max’s voice is so important to her character, and Hannah genuinely embodies the character naturally. We’re lucky that she wanted to come back and play Max.
Q: You’ve said that neither ending is canon and that, with the journal and stuff, players can decide how that played out in-game. I was curious if you could talk about how big of an impact that ending will have on Double Exposure?
Stauder:It definitely affects things in the game. One core conceit is that, no matter which ending you got, Max has this trauma she has to process. What flavor of trauma it is is specific to which choice players make and that informs so much about where Max needs to grow as a character and very much how she moves past it. It affects the way you’re going to experience the story."
Farah:Yeah. We want to ensure that the story respects the choices that you made in the first game because I know that a lot of people, including me, are very attached to the way the story played out for them. The ways Max relates to her past relates to people, and like you said, the journal and stuff give insight into that core aspect of her life.
Q: What’s the connection between Max’s original time powers and her new shift powers? Is there a connection? Is it a progression of her powers?
Stauder:She discovers [her new powers] when she tries to use them. Because she hasn’t used them in forever, she has the unexpected result where she suddenly snaps across an alternate timeline. She discovers she can actually movebetween the two timelines. When you play the later chapters, you get a little more attached to her existing powers and understand, maybe, where the powers come from in the story.
Q: So, this shift power, it’s not static? We’re going to see it grow throughout game? Not just like how it was in the demo where you swap the parts and the telescope?
Stauder: You’re actually touching upon a third part of the power where she’s up against something she can’t just pick up and take it across the timeline, and she physically can Shift it. We’ll see that return in later chapters, and further permutations of using Shifting under different circumstances, like in a tense action sequence, a chase sequence, or other detective-type scenes. Generally, you’ll always have something interesting to ease into with herShift Powers, where you can see into the other timeline, hear into it, and all that stuff.
Q: The connection to the first game is the bigger deal, but were there any major lessons taken from Life is Strange: True Colors that play a role in Double Exposure?
Stauder:One of thebiggest things that Deck Nine did on True Colorsto evolve the series was push performance acting. It was the first performance capture installment in the franchise, and we push that further [with Double Exposure]. Our characters look and react better than True Colors, which is already fantastic, and that just allows us a greater medium to tell our story better because our characters can realistically reflect the performances of our actors.
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