WordPlayer: Life is Strange: Double Exposure Makes Me Miss Episodic Releases

I fondly remember the day the last episode of the original Life is Strange released. I remember the anticipation and excitement, the online speculation about how it would end; I remember trading stories about the choices I'd made and seeing people warm up to the experience over months. The folks who had been annoyed by all the teen mannerisms and the heavy use of the word "hella" had gone quiet, either because they'd stopped paying attention or had been won over by the game's earnest drama and twisty story. My girlfriend at the time was excited for me to get home that night so that we could play it together and see how the story ended. Life is Strange was not even a game that I necessarily loved, but in that moment I was all-in.

The first season of Life is Strange hit in the middle of a boom period for episodic narrative games. Telltale led the way, and the choice-heavy, wonderfully dramatic first season of their The Walking Dead series thrived off fan interest and speculation. It stayed in "the conversation" for a full year, and by the time episode 5 released many of us were extremely excited to see the culmination of the choices we'd made. With each new episode, there was a fresh wave of conversation and speculation. Social media would be abuzz with folks who were playing the game, all reacting to the same parts of the story at once. There was a sense that if you weren't taking part, you were missing out. 

Telltale had first adopted the episodic model in 2006 with Sam & Max Save the World, and continued releasing game episodes at a steady pace until the company was shuttered in 2018. That wasn't necessarily the moment that the episodic release model died - Life is Strange 2 was still doing episodic releases in 2019 - but it was certainly the end of the episodic narrative game boom period.

The first season of Life is Strange hit in the middle of a boom period for episodic narrative games.

Across its lifespan, Telltale released 21 episodic games, inspiring other series like Dreamfall, King's Quest, and The Council to adopt episodic schedules. The first game in the new Hitman trilogy used an episodic release schedule, giving players incentive to dig deep on each map. Resident Evil Revelations 2 released slowly over a month. Even the Half-Life 2 DLCs were famously labelled as Episode 1 & 2.

These days, it's much rarer to talk about games in terms of "episodes", although the television parlance has not gone away - games have "seasons" now, content drops that are meant to keep players coming back indefinitely. In an episodic model, there's a defined endpoint that the game - and the game's story - are building towards. The episodes build towards a whole, but also function individually. In the original Life is Strange, you'd finish each episode having made a handful of interesting choices and learned more about Max and Chloe's situation. There are still narrative games that release periodic episodes - Scarlet Hollow springs to mind - but the model has fallen out of vogue. Life is Strange abandoned an episodic release schedule with 2021's True Colors, and the latest game, Double Exposure, has also launched all at once. 

A lot has changed since the first Life is Strange, in terms of how we play games, how we talk about them, and how publishers are interpreting market shifts. It makes sense that Max's new adventure has dropped all at once, even if early access to the first two episodes was granted to folks who forked out for the ultimate edition. But I believe that something has been lost in the translation to a "binge" format, both in how the game has been consumed and talked about, but also in the design principles underlying the experience.

There's a trend in a lot of the Netflix shows I like, especially the comedic dramas with queer themes: think Sex Education, Never Have I Ever, Dead To Me, You (and even Stranger Things to some extent). In early seasons, these shows often charm me with their well-defined premises, interesting characters, and sharp, funny writing. They're funny, they're cool, they're hip, and - in some cases - they're quite progressive, taking their queer characters seriously and exploring moral dilemmas and difficult situations with a mix of thoughtfulness and good humour.

A lot has changed since the first Life is Strange, in terms of how we play games, how we talk about them, and how publishers are interpreting market shifts.

And then, at some point around season three or four, there's a turn. The situations in the show heighten, but also, somehow, flatten: the storylines and plot beats become more ridiculous, but it's harder to get invested in them. Characters' edges get sanded off, and they increasingly talk in memes and catchphrases, as though there's a contractual obligation to provide moments that can easily be turned into GIFs. Subplots pop up and are swiftly dropped with little fanfare. Everything is a little bigger, a little sillier, and there's not much breathing room, while conflicts feel less organic and resolve too neatly. Even if you enjoy the season, talking about it with someone else afterwards will often turn into both of you listing issues and complaints that build up when you take time to think more about what you just watched. 

There are elements of the Netflix model of whole season drops, of designing shows so that they can be half-watched on a phone without really missing anything, that I felt creeping into Life is Strange: Double Exposure. This is the latest entry in a series that has found success by giving its players young, diverse protagonists with compelling, relatable dramatic problems, and then taking their emotional journeys seriously. Previous games have been wrapped in a compelling blanket of light magical realism, but the stakes have, in the past, always felt recognisably human.

Double Exposure, I think, gets the balance wrong, focusing in harder on the magical realism as the source of much of the drama. The premise of the game is that Max, who was able to turn back the clock to change her choices in the previous game, now has the ability to switch between two different dimensions - one in which her best friend Safi has been murdered, and another where she hasn't.

While there are still compelling moments throughout the story, the emphasis on powers and abilities is much heavier here - and much of the game's mystery centers on those powers, too. This isn't a game where you're meant to speculate about what's really going on, or ponder symbolism, or really think about what you want for the characters. Instead, the emphasis is on finding out what happens next, right away. Who killed Saf, and can (or should) Max undo it? The answers to these questions never feel as important as they should.

Double Exposure, I think, gets the balance wrong, focusing in harder on the magical realism as the source of much of the drama.

An extra challenge of the episodic release strategy is that players (or viewers) have longer to think about what they're experiencing. There are some big swing moments in Double Exposure that could, in theory, deepen our understanding of the metaphysics of this weird world where some folks have magic powers. But a binge release model means that Double Exposure feels comfortable glossing over certain twists and turns in a way that I found very unsatisfying. A lot of Double Exposure feels like set-up for another sequel rather than a complete experience in and of itself. The problems in this game's story would have been magnified to a disastrous degree if the player was given a month or two between episodes to think and reflect.

I still enjoyed a lot of my time playing Life is Strange: Double Exposure, because I am just so in the pocket for games about wandering around chatting to people - and I'm still invested in this world, despite everything. But like all those Netflix shows I used to love, it feels a bit blander, a little less interested in the emotional depth of its characters, and more like it's trying to keep me subscribed.

I wonder how the game might have been different if the team behind it had been asked to make a game that would keep players coming back every few months for the next chunk of the story, one that was meant to invite discussion and speculation. I can wonder what Life is Strange: Triple Exposure (sorry) is going to look like, but I'm not excited to see what choices I'm faced with next, or to talk through my observations with other players. The episodic release model is no longer in vogue, but it might be what Life is Strange needs to really thrive again.