Life Is Unusual: Double Exposure is launching in just some quick weeks, placing gamers again into the footwear of the primary recreation’s protagonist, Max Caulfield, on a brand new journey that strikes her from one US coast to the opposite. We just lately performed a 45-minute demo of one of many recreation’s early chapters that exhibits off her newfound talents to maneuver between parallel realities with one main distinction: In a single world, her buddy Safi is alive; within the different, she’s been murdered, and the killer within the first actuality should still be at-large, main Max on an journey to save lots of her buddy earlier than it is too late.
We additionally spoke to the sport’s inventive director, Jonathan Stauder, and narrative director Felice Kuan, about what went into constructing out this new story for Max, how she ended up in Vermont, and extra on the lore surrounding the broader Life is Unusual universe. You possibly can learn our Q&A with the workforce under, earlier than the sport’s debut on October 29.
Observe: This interview has been edited for readability.
GameSpot: Does Double Exposure declare one ending from the primary recreation canon, and if not, how does that work?
Jonathan Stauder: Oh, no. Nope. So, in the middle of beginning up the sport, taking part in the primary couple of scenes, you’ll have the chance to say what occurred within the first recreation. From that time ahead, you’ve got decided your canon.
Okay. I do not know if it will’ve made sense, however I used to be considering, possibly she is shifting between two realities that spawned from the primary recreation’s ending.
JS: Yeah, no. That is been a [source] of confusion. So simply to be clear, the 2 realities are: Safi’s alive and Safi’s useless. Nothing with Arcadia Bay.
And she or he’s moved to Vermont, proper? What went into that call? I can perceive the thought of, ‘Let’s get her out of the Pacific Northwest,” however why Vermont particularly?
Felice Kuan: I do know that we needed her distant, proper? So symbolically, actually on the opposite facet of the nation [made sense]. I do not know if there was another particular cause. I do know that we had been enthusiastic about winter, as a result of the final recreation happened round Halloween, so then the subsequent speedy season, you get winter, you get Christmas.
So in a narrative about alternate realities, how can we ensure that is our Max from the primary recreation? Why do not we have to fear about that?
JS: Yeah, no, so it is your Max. Like we had been saying, we provide you with that second to kind of affirm what occurred with that main alternative. From that second ahead, it’s best to really feel assured as a participant, like, “I am taking the Max I knew from the primary recreation ahead into this one and evolving her.”
The plot jogs my memory of the film One other Earth. Have you ever seen it and was that an inspiration? [Both developers confirm they haven’t.] Do you’ve got another particular inspirations that led you to this story?
FK: From the literary facet, the multiverse [concept] could be very, very in and really, very prevalent. And so I feel we really wanted–not that we weren’t impressed, and never that we did not try different media–but we needed very a lot to search out Max’s model of that. [What is her] significant intersection with multiverse concepts that Max might undergo?
JS: And visually, I am an enormous fan of Treatment video games and their very own explicit model of bizarre and the way they discover their very own method to do it, whether or not it is alt timelines, multiverses, that kind of factor. And so I feel simply as a jumping-off level, we’re gonna discover our personal method to do that explicit taste of time journey throughout alt universes. I feel, particularly later within the recreation, you would possibly see some visible prospers that really feel slightly bit [like] Treatment.
This collection at all times makes use of a number of licensed music. Ought to followers anticipate extra of that right here? Are you able to converse to particular tracks or artists?
JS: it’s going to be a bunch of issues that you do not know but, as a result of they’re all recent and new and unique for this recreation. My mandate for the soundtrack and the rating was, you need type of the story of Max and the story of Safi, and the way they affect and intertwine and alter each other, to echo within the music and the soundtrack. And so, hopefully, you play all 5 chapters, and you are feeling that. And I do know there’s much more in regards to the music popping out earlier than launch, too.
I’ve seen fan sentiment suggesting bringing Max again is solely fan service. Are you able to clarify why it is greater than that?
FK: I feel as soon as you’ve got gone via this [game], it’s going to be very clear that that is [necessarily] Max’s story. All of us discovered the primary recreation very formative and felt like after an enormous alternative just like the one she has made, there’s a ton to unpack. It is also just about the [same] period of time that has handed since that recreation’s story, so our personal views of what it meant, I feel, give us one thing to say.
JS: Proper, so if we’re taking a look at a listing of powers that will be good for these protagonists and we’re taking a look at this shifting between two distinctly totally different timelines, I feel [we found] that it was a very good technique for Max to possibly work via all these points popping out of the primary recreation, and supply catharsis. So we mentioned that, ‘Oh, man, this may very well be a very good Max recreation.’ We go down that rabbit gap uncover, ‘Oh, I feel we’re proper.’ After which right here we’re.
Is there something a Life is Unusual recreation could not do within the first recreation that you could possibly do now? This may very well be technical or narrative-related, or one thing else.
JS: Yeah. I imply, for positive, from a technical perspective. So that is the primary Life is Unusual recreation in Unreal Engine 5. So visually, there are a large variety of enhancements. You are gonna see that in all of our performances, the constancy, the lighting, all these types of issues […] Like Max’s new energy, the shifting, the immediacy of it–where you possibly can pop between two variations of an area with no load display that kind of factor. That is definitely one thing you could not have accomplished, even say again in [2021’s] True Colours.
FK: We love the primary recreation. I feel we tried to do the whole lot it does, however extra. I feel that the primary recreation set a path for having totally different sorts of characters that you do not usually see, and being very specific about subjects like teen suicide, issues like that [games] simply do not do. And so I feel now we’re at a spot with nonetheless many there have been now, the place we will do this and do it much more brazenly, and have it’s baked into the method.
Do all the Life is Unusual video games share a single story universe?
JS: Oh yeah, a hundred percent. All the pieces that Do not Nod made, the whole lot that Deck 9 has made, that is all one continuity. However if you happen to go, like, into the comics, into the novels, that’s the place issues begin to get slightly murky. However for positive, all the printed video games so far happen in the identical world.
GameSpot: So in a single world, all these youngsters are discovering that they’ve these powers they usually’re probably just like the Avengers of troubled youths. Thematically, you need to specific that these youngsters all uncover their powers at their lowest level, is that proper? One thing traumatic is triggering it every time?
JS: Precisely.
KF: And that signifies that not each energy is an efficient Life is Unusual energy as a result of the powers are intimately tied to the particular trauma, and while you discover a story background and an influence that, like, click on, it is thrilling.
Life is Unusual: Double Exposure launches on October 29 for PC, PS5, Xbox Collection X|S, and Swap. You possibly can preorder it now and obtain bonuses reminiscent of a steelbook case and different bonuses, each digital and bodily, relying on which bundle you purchase.