Life is Strange: Double Exposure's power limits are a mystery, even to Max

The Life is Strange series is celebrating its tenth anniversary and it's doing so by bringing back the main character who helped start it all. Max Caulfield is back in the protagonist role in a new setting, with a new supporting cast of characters, and a new mystery to solve. She'll have a new set of powers to help her along the way, but it turns out she may not realize how powerful these abilities are. Shacknews recently had an opportunity to try out Life is Strange: Double Exposure during our recent trip to PAX West 2024.

A decade after her first adventure, Max Caulfield's days in Arcadia Bay are a distant memory. She has gone to join the staff of Caledon University as the resident photographer and made some new friends in her time on the job. However, one of them has been murdered and the killer is still on the loose. Max is on the trail for the killer and while she's not the only one hunting the perpetrator down, she is the only one equipped with a unique set of powers.

Max has a new ability called Shift that lets her jump back and forth between two timelines: The current one where her friend Safi was murdered and an alternate one where she's still alive. These parallel timelines have some stark differences, but one thing they have in common is that Safi's killer is looking to strike.

Shift was prominently put on display during an early portion of Chapter 2. There's a third friend who hangs around Max and Safi named Moses. He has suddenly become a top suspect for Detective Alderman, who was just put on the case. Alderman believes that Moses' proximity to Safi makes him a person of interest and Moses hasn't helped his case by removing Safi's camera from the scene of her murder.

To help take the heat off her friend, Max has gone in search of Safi's camera, which is somewhere inside Moses' lab. The lab is sealed off in the main timeline, so Max has to use Shift to go into the alternate timeline and simply walk into the lab, where Moses is currently hard at work. Using Shift anywhere can cause all sorts of technical and logical problems, so Max can only use this ability in certain places. Shift rift locations can help provide some valuable clues on where to go next. The specific Shift location just around the corner from where Alderman is interrogating Moses provides valuable cover and allows her to move to the alternate timeline undetected.

In the other timeline, Max asks Moses where he would hypothetically put a highly valuable item. By questioning him through the tried-and-true Life is Strange dialogue tree formula, she learns that he would keep critical items underneath something safe. It turns out this is code for something else and players must explore the lab across both timelines to uncover Moses' actual meaning and the current-timeline location of Safi's camera. One mechanic that proves helpful is Pulse, which allows Max to peek through the fabric of space to potentially see how certain scenes play out across both timelines.

Light stealth sections also appear to be part of the Double Exposure formula. After finding the location of Safi's camera, Max was forced to try and sneak past Detective Alderman, who stormed in to investigate. The idea becomes to Shift between timelines and find something that can distract the detective in order to let Max grab the camera and beat a hasty exit.

Where things get interesting is that there appears to be more to Max's powers. Moses' lab has two distinct layouts in each timeline. In the timeline where Safi is dead, the lab is closed and has several unopened shipping containers. In the other timeline, the lab is an active place and Moses has decorated it for the holidays. However, when Max is nearly caught with the camera by Detective Alderman, she suddenly swaps objects from across timelines, bringing Moses' telescope from the alternate space into her current one. Nobody understands how this happened, including Max, which indicates that she doesn't know how far her power actually goes.

The last thing to note is that major branching decision points, a signature of the Life is Strange series, are back again. Our playthrough ended with Detective Alderman isolating Max and asking her to give her any information she may have on people of interest, hinting at Moses. The player can opt to accept his business card or blow him off, potentially making an enemy out of him. The game notes that this choice will have consequences, but our playthrough ended before we could get any real indicator of what they would be.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure will feature the same Max Caulfield everyone knows, right down to voice actress Hannah Telle returning to the role, but she's a Max Caulfield who has grown up since the last time players saw her. However her Arcadia Bay story ended, Max is at the forefront of another big mystery and she's ready to take charge. Look for Life is Strange: Double Exposure to come to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S on October 29.

This preview is based on an early Xbox Series X|S build played behind closed doors at PAX West 2024. The final product is subject to change.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?