7/2/2023 0 Comments Oxenfree 2![]() ![]() There's very few times when there's just one path to get up or down. “It also pushed us to design the environments in ways that would allow those types of moments to actually occur. We wanted you to be making choices with your physical decisions about what you're doing and how you want to go about that,” Studio Lead Writer Adam Hines told IGN. “It was definitely an initial goal of ours: we wanted more choices that aren't dialogue-based. Even a small decision like that could lead to new permutations in conversation, and I’m fascinated to see how scenes can play out differently, as a moment like this was something emblematic of what the developers strove for in the sequel. Jacob takes a much safer route, climbing down a rock wall to help her back up. A small example we saw involved Riley trying to cross an ultimately un-jumpable gap by, well, jumping it, falling to a rock a little below. Thankfully, Oxenfree II seems to continue to nail that tone of realistic, casual conversation that Night School excelled at in both the original and Afterparty, and Oxenfree II looks to make the player’s choices matter even more this time around. The first game’s dialogue blended West Wing-paced chatter with Veronica Mars-esque wit, and though these characters are older, that blend still feels right at home as Riley and her friend Jacob explored Camena in the section of gameplay I saw.Īt the end of the day, a game like Oxenfree will live or die by how charming, or at least interesting, these characters are, particularly given that players are constantly making dialogue choices. ![]() Her confident tone, mixing a bit of snark with an undertone of warmth, fits right at home in Night School’s chatty world. There will be plenty of acknowledgements to the first game’s story, and in fact, the developers have even been updating the original Oxenfree on PC with new audio clips that help bridge the story of this sequel’s villains, Parentage, with the original game.īut the focus seems to primarily be on Riley’s story. For me, it was exciting to see platforming and puzzle-solving elevated in such a tangible way.A new cast doesn’t mean your time with the original Oxenfree will be for nought, whether you played years ago, revisit before the sequel, or are just picking it up now. Time tears are natural fissures in the time-space continuum that allow players to revisit the past to alter the future. During my preview, Night School Studio showcased a compelling puzzle that required Riley to venture into a time tear to repair a damaged mineshaft elevator. The final noteworthy change in OXENFREE II: Lost Signals stems from the team's innovation with the series' time loop mechanic. In combination with the potential for different endings, this flexibility will likely encourage multiple playthroughs in a way OXENFREE simply didn't. This horror sequel certainly shouldn't be considered "open-world." However, players have more options than ever before regarding how and when they complete particular objectives in the game. While the original OXENFREE was quite linear, OXENFREE II: Lost Signals provides far more options for exploration. The sheer size of the locations I witnessed during this slice of gameplay looked drastically larger than anything I saw in the first entry. Players will now be given multiple traversal options at crucial moments in the game that impact character dialogue and even affect certain puzzles. For me, it was exciting to see platforming and puzzle-solving elevated in such a tangible way.Īnother enormous change with OXENFREE II: Lost Signals is the overall scale and freedom provided with its new environments. ![]()
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