The Life is Strange series has been an interesting diversion from Square Enix’s typical MO of putting out endless takes on RPGs, instead offering heavily narrative-focused stories exploring the trials of various people who develop supernatural abilities. This series' strong storytelling has garnered a loyal fanbase, it’s also proven to be a bit uneven along the way.
The original Life is Strange followed the adventures of a time-bending teen named Max Caulfield, and its ending (whichever one you picked) was considered by its creators Dontnod to be the definitive end of Max’s story, as Life is Strange was intended to be a sort of anthology series and Dontnod introduced a new protagonist in Life is Strange 2. With development duties having shifted to Deck Nine, however, a direct sequel has now been produced that continues the story of an older Max who now lives in another part of the country. Despite its divisive premise, Life is Strange: Double Exposure does a solid job of exploring Max’s character further while introducing a new and interesting supporting cast, though it unfortunately feels like a clumsy fit for the Switch’s limited hardware.
Double Exposure picks up about 10 years after the events of the first Life is Strange, with Max now living in a quiet and woodsy Vermont college town as a resident professor teaching photography classes at the fictional Caledon University. Max is clearly still deeply affected by the events of the first game, as evidenced by her refusal to use her time manipulation powers and her general caginess when asked about her past by curious friends, but the support and companionship she receives from her new friends in Lakeport seem to be helping her heal. Things take a turn for the worse, however, when a key character is murdered towards the end of the first chapter, kicking off a thrilling whodunnit that leaves Max with little choice but to embrace her powers again.
The main key to solving this mystery is Max’s time manipulation ability, but here it’s evolved from when she was younger: She can now jump between two alternate timelines. The first of these timelines is her ‘home’ branch in which the murder happened and she must face the resulting effects on the community, while the other is an alternate where the victim is still alive, but possibly not for long. Max must glean information from both timelines to understand the bigger picture and discover the killer and their motive.
We generally enjoyed the writing here, though there are many instances where the dialogue can feel a bit too overproduced. It’s difficult to precisely explain what feels off about this, but there’s something intangibly performative about how many characters ‘act natural’ around each other, as if they’re trying too hard to present themselves as likeable to you, the invisible audience. Still, there are plenty of moments of genuine sincerity and a few cool plot twists along the way; despite some clumsiness, this ultimately feels like a story worth seeing through to its end.
In terms of its gameplay, Double Exposure is rather limited, though this isn’t necessarily a bad thing considering the genre. Most of the game is spent simply ambling about as Max and interacting with everyone and everything in a given area. The occasional ‘puzzle’ will task you with finding a solution to an obstacle — such as an early example of scouring the environment for an object to pick the lock to a bookcase so an NPC can retrieve a book — but there generally isn’t anything that requires more effort than stumbling upon the thing the devs want you to find.
We would’ve appreciated a little more complexity, but the pace of gameplay adheres well to the focus on narrative. The flavour text of Max examining the environment and talking with random characters adds a lot to the feeling of Lakeport being a real place, and all the little inconsequential details you can uncover add to the experience. For better or worse, this is the kind of game where the objective is not so much to ‘win’ as to simply take everything at your own pace and immerse yourself—think of it like a movie or TV series that allows for more interactivity and freedom of movement.
Though the story itself is compelling and the gameplay is fine, the visual presentation unfortunately leaves a lot to be desired. It’s a trope by now that the Switch version of a new release comes with some performance problems and Double Exposure's awkward lighting, excessive pop-in, and wooden character models serve as a harsh reminder of this. This release is technically playable and we never experienced any crashes, but there’s a harsh disconnect when yet another cutscene is playing out and you’re trying to enjoy the excellent voice acting being spoken by dead-eyed, plastic models that don’t come close to conveying the same level of emotion in their voices.
Art style issues aside, the resolution also feels much too low in both docked and handheld mode, leaving an image that looks grainy and a bit like you’re viewing everything through an out-of-focus lens. Sure, Double Exposure is playable on the Switch, but it’s abundantly clear that the developers really had to stretch to make this one work on the ageing hardware and the results are merely passable.
Conclusion
Life is Strange: Double Exposure is a perfectly enjoyable narrative adventure, but one which we’d strongly suggest you play elsewhere unless Switch is your only means. Timeline-hopping antics, a compelling murder mystery, and a cosy atmosphere all work strongly in this one’s favour, but the Switch’s hardware limitations lead to an experience that feels notably blunted due to the various visual cuts that had to be made to fit this one on the humble handheld. The story itself is a fine adventure that fans (especially of the first entry) may find worthwhile, but the value proposition on Switch makes it harder to justify that $50 price tag. We wouldn’t say to outright avoid the Switch version, but we’d suggest you wait for a deep sale before diving in.
Comments 38
Poor Double Exposure. Man, this game just did not get good reviews, but if you like the series, rest assured, you’ll like this one, as long as you’re a fan that is open minded on what it does and not part of the “LiS 1 is the only good one” crowd. Can’t say for performance on Switch, as I played on PS5, but I can say that this is probably the most underrated title this year, based on the review scores. It’s not the best in the series, but it’s still a good story, and I think reviews for this one have been harsh in general with the scores, which may off-put people that would genuinely like the game.
Ouch. Another victim of those "scale quality from Epic to Low" ahem... ports.
Haven't played this one. But have played a bit of the first one on Switch. Which I liked and that also got a 5 on here. So I hope I'll also enjoy this one despite their graphical shortcomings.
Thanks for the review, while your mileage may vary when it comes to the writing (just look at the very first comment here) it's unfortunate if kind of expected to hear that the presentation took such a hit on Switch and I hope patches and/or Switch's successor can improve on that - might still be interested in it at some point, but that all depends on how much I enjoy the first Life is Strange when I finally give at least that a try!
SwitchVogel wrote:
I fired up Fallout 4 recently, and this became something of a dealbreaker, for me. And yeah I know it's a much older game, but the technical/performance aspect of a game's presentation (particularly in ones as narrative-focused as LiS/FO) can have a massive detrimental effect on immersion.
Going as far back as Final Fantasy X on PS2, say what you will about the performances - personally I thought they were decent - but what absolutely broke me was the lip-synching (or lack thereof). From what I've read, the actors weren't even given a video reference to work to, just a script, and it absolutely shows. I can't imagine the headaches that the sound editors must have had trying to get the audio to match.
Thought i got the Jan 25 release date wrong when I saw this. But that's just the physical so not a good start for Ninty in 25. But as we know unless you believe 2026 Switch 2 it will be a lot better.
Not surprising, I knew with the horrible ports of the lis remasters on switch that this would also have bad performance. I honestly wouldn't even care, except these are narrative focused games which aren't that graphically demanding, but still somehow poorly optimized compared to many good looking ports on Switch already.. will definitely be picking this up on PS5 eventually
Honestly, these games have always sucked, I can't at all understand all the hype about it when the first one came out. Only thing worse than Life is Strange was Gone Home, probably
"Some dialogue scenes designed to make characters likeable don't quite come off"
Let's talk bidness, you got hella cash!
They really milked this series dry. It was a good one-off game, there was no reason to have all these sequels.
"Some dialogue scenes designed to make characters likeable don't quite come off"
So it's a Life is Strange game XD
I thought True Colors was excellent! It also suffered on switch though.
It was my first Life is Strange, and maybe it’s one of those “the first one you play is always your favorite” type series?
Ah, here come the super clever commenters to show everyone how much better they are for disliking this game lol. It's fine if you aren't a fan but why do all of you always show up to say the exact same things for every lis release
Honest question for the NintendoLife staff:
In December of 2024, how many people do you think are reading this review wondering if Switch is the best place to play a brand new PS5 game?
@babybilly is this a series that is hated on? I'm not interested as this seems more like an interactive story than a traditional game if that makes sense. People just look for affirmation of their pre conceived opinions. Oh star wars got a 9, "disney" shills". oh star wars got a 6, "I told you so"
i tried LiS 2 and to like these games you need to have a quite specific mindset, that likes a kind of cringey narrative based affair. a lot of that kind of contemporary drama kind of dialogue
@duerer to those still conditioned by the electronics market to call redundantly bloated graphics "epic", perhaps.🤔😅
"It looks pretty bad on Switch, with presentation that makes the storytelling less effective..."
So you'd rather have a 10 fps slideshow instead?
Ahh yes.."game is spent simply ambling about as Max and interacting with everyone and everything"..
We definitely need more ambling about aimlessly spamming interact simulators. That's peak video gaming.
@babybilly The concept of a 'news article' is lost on you apparently if you cant understand that is why people may come to comment on something at the same time.
I played the first game on PS3, I remember waiting for each new episode and watching some speculation videos online. Didn't go back to the series until I bought True Colours a while back on Switch and to be honest I lost interest in it.
@Yodalovesu With a few exceptions (Alien Isolation comes to mind) the Switch version is obviously always the 'inferior' version because you're making that trade for portability. However, I'd say that over these last few years, more games have been undershooting even those lower expectations for performance, and I personally think that's something that prospective buyers should know when reading a review.
It's not about asking if the Switch version is the best of them all, but whether the Switch port itself is good enough to even justify its own existence. For this game, I'd say it barely clears that bar.
That game is a flaming turd.
Never will understand the appeal of these games that're more of a Choose Your Own Adventure book than game, with most of the gameplay just being QTEs. I could understand if they were $20-30, but I have to wonder how many actual books or movies could've been purchased for the amount of a full priced game. Still sucks for the people that do like them that it's poorly optimized.
A bad port of a bad game. DE is the worst game of the series IMO
@Yodalovesu I don't have any other way to play new releases so I'm keen to know how this plays on switch
Being unfamiliar with the series, I always assumed "double exposure" was a compilation of two games in the series or a remaster... Perhaps not the best title for a standalone game?
@Andee This is why I kept ricocheting off of FO4 every time I tried to play it. Between giving the main char voice lines, and how jarring (and limited!) dialog was compared to FO3/NV….. I’m finally forcing myself to play it, and the gunplay is def superior, as is crafting. Not a fan of settlement building, so I wish there was less focus there and more dialog……. But I’ve truly gotta force myself through the dialog….
@Dm9982 yep, same — I gave it another go when they released the PS5 upgrade, but I just found myself drifting away and/or being distracted by other games. The base-building, while on paper sounds like it should be fun and satisfying, always felt very slipshod and more fiddly than it ought to be.
@Dm9982 Fallout 4's a bad Fallout game but a good game at it's core. Kinda like Dark Souls 2 I think reception would be different if it had a name that wasn't numbered. The good game at it's core SHOULD have been Starfield, but they gutted it even more so it doesn't even have memorable settings to save it like FO4.
@shoeses I haven’t been able to even get past the opening of Starfield to be honest…. It starts nearly exactly like Outer Worlds, but without any true charm to it…. It’s another game I’ll have to force myself through. I know just from the gameplay FO4 is a good core game. I’ve made it to level 14 before, though that was mainly due to crafting crap.:..
I want to feel the need to explore more in games like FO4 and Starfield, but they just don’t have a starting draw for me.:.. it’s like I get hit with a wall of “meh” right off the bat. Particularly so with Starfield, but that wall is also present with FO4 thanks to the focused distraction of rebuilding Sanctuary at the beginning.
It starts nearly like FO3, a family member mystery. But FO3 keeps you on a chase and only distracts with exploration quests…. FO4 SHOULD want you to chase after your baby first thing, but instead it redirects you right back to sanctuary and distracts you. Lol
@somnambulance I've liked all of the Life is Strange games except for Life is Strange 2.
Life is Strange? 9 out of 10. Amazing. Before the Storm? 7.5. A strong prequel. True Colors? 8.5. Clever and emotional. Double Exposure? 8. Stellar voice acting (Hannah Telle fully deserved her Best Performance nod), jaw-dropping animations, relatable characters, and a fascinating story.
I think Double Exposure has been judged way too harshly. I thought the writers dropped the ball with one of the new characters, but I was on board for everything else (including what they did with a certain character that has so many people up in arms), and I'm excited to see where the story goes next.
I played the first game recently and while I can for sure see the appeal I feel the cringy dialogue took me out of it and even made me flat out dislike Chloe.
You say in this review "dialogue can feel a bit too overproduced" and that's totally how I'd describe the first game so its sad they haven't gotten better at writing between the bigger moments.
@InJeffable I liked LiS2! I basically agree with your micro-reviews, though True Colors is my favorite of the bunch.
I think that reading the reviews for Double Exposure has been strange. I think NLife’s review actually makes sense, given that it highlights issues with the platform that hosts the game. That’s fine. I’ve read some reviews though where you’ve got to wonder why certain reviewers got assigned to the game. It’s not like Metaphor Refantazio got assigned reviewers that had little JRPG experience, you know? Few platforms assigned CoD reviews to people that don’t play FPS games. Granted, it would be interesting to see those perspectives, and granted LiS has a smaller and considerably more niche audience, but after playing the game, I was baffled with some of what I read in some reviews, especially after knowing the game plays like a LiS game verbatim. The game deserves better than it’s getting. In this day and age, people tear games down based on their review score, and I’ve seen this game get unwarranted hate for just being a solid narrative experience with its biggest sin perhaps being that it plays things relatively safe, even with the controversial decision not to include one character.
Time travel was the perfect power to integrate the story with the gameplay. I was really hoping it would be used again here, but they dug HARD into the alternate universe power, and frankly it's just uninteresting. It makes for a few good puzzles but it's not used effectively for the narrative. I'm sad because I do like Max as a character, but this did not get met back into the series.
@twowingedangel No, I want a properly ported game
See: Hellblade 1, Doom, Wolfenstein, Ace Combat 7, etc, etc.
I'm sick and tired of these cheapass "ports", where zero effort given to the porting process....
Finally i could play life is strange on nintendo
The girl on the box looks a lot like Yuna.
I planned on just watching this game through the Convenient placed viewer mode through YouTube. I enjoyed the first game a lot, hated Life Is Strange 2, I enjoyed the stories of True Colors and Before the Storm a lot, but the gameplay started feeling dated by then. I've not been a fan of the big price increase to these games when they stopped releasing episodes and released the full product in one go. It went from $20 to full price. These types are OK at $20, but a rip-off at full price. The Telltale types had better action and so I enjoyed those better as a whole.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...