Oxenfree 2 is a game about time. This should be obvious to anyone who has played the original. However, it goes much deeper than that, as the passage of time has had a profound impact on how Oxenfree 2story is told.
If you don’t know about the original Oxenfree, the film stars a group of teenagers who travel to deserted Edwards Island for a beach party. This leads to an encounter with supernatural phenomena involving ghosts hidden in radio signals and a series of perpetual time loops.
It’s been seven years since its release Oxenfree. The group of four friends at Night School Studio is now an official Netflix-owned business. Each of the original teams has aged by almost a decade. All this change is felt deeply in Oxenfree 2.
Screenshot of Siliconera
For starters, the cast is no longer a bunch of teenagers drunk on the beach wondering how to ask their crush out on a date. Instead, we play Riley and Jacob, two unidentified people who are significantly older. Both are tired and skeptical of the world, knocked down after years of adult struggle.
The premise reflects this – both Riley and Jacob are doing an environmental survey job with terrible hours and certainly even worse pay. Their mission is to set up transmitters to monitor the environment, and this inadvertently awakens the ghosts on Edwards Island. Now the phenomena on the island are gradually spreading inland. This was seen by the duo as scary but upsetting, compared to how teenagers considered it scary but still good.
More cynical attitude, tired of this world in the main characters caused Oxenfree 2 to feel more somber than its predecessor. This is not a bad thing; it’s just a change in perspective. Firstly Oxenfree examine small-town life through a younger generation, while Oxenfree 2 See it through the eyes of an adult. Riley is the man who escaped from town and returned after a stint in the army, while Jacob is the man still stuck in a miserable small town life. This contrast serves the bulk of the discussion between the two parties, as both reflect on the decisions they have made to get to this point, and neither side seems to do better than the other.
Screenshot of Siliconera
Obviously, I’ve talked a lot about the story and theme of Oxenfree 2, but I haven’t discussed the gameplay much so far. Like its predecessor, this is a game built on the story rather than its mechanics. There’s still a lot of interaction here, though, and if you’ve played Oxenfree for the first time, you know what to expect. You can roam the map in a semi-linear fashion, with occasional selections based on the order in which you visit certain locations. There are also quizzes here and there to keep things interesting, although a few of them are particularly challenging.
There is also the supernatural nature of what is going on in mechanics. Many times you need to use the radio to tune in to specific frequencies to continue the story. Usually, this happens by summoning a ghost whose speech is stitched together from other radio programs like the audio version of the ransom announcement. The coolest thing is that there are now radio-tunable intervals, and these allow you to get around obstacles by moving to the interval where those obstacles no more. They’re fun, but sadly underused as I’ve only encountered maybe two or three of them in the entire game.
Screenshot of Siliconera
The dialogue choices are the real draw here, offering the most variation in repeat playthroughs. This game has a lot to say, and fortunately, it’s all delivered with excellent voice acting. You can shape where the dialogue goes through different options. These things define what kind of character Riley is, allowing her to be kind, grumpy, or anything in between. They are selected simply by pressing a button when the dialogue bubble selection appears and the system has been greatly improved for Oxenfree 2. In the original game, choosing your answer often resulted in dialogue being uttered before the other characters finished their sentences. In the sequel, choosing an answer will lock it, but Riley will only say it when another character finishes their sentence. It makes conversations a lot more natural than the first, and it’s a welcome addition.
I can’t guarantee how different the game is in multiple plays with different selections, as I’ve only played the game once. However, I did get a glimpse of the places where these choices would dramatically change the experience. Riley’s relationship with Jacob is one of clarity, as he often speaks his mind out loud and you often have multiple ways of responding to him. Overall, I treat him well, but at the same time, the other options make it clear that you can be cruel to this puppy man instead. I imagine that the gameplay doesn’t lead to him reacting to the experience like he did to me.
There is also a choice at the end of Oxenfree 2 that clearly reveals that the game has at least three endings. There’s no spoiler here, of course, but it’s clear that it takes at least three plays to see everything the title has to offer. Or you can just choose a choice you made as your standard and leave it as is. I like to think I made the right choice, but the nature of the game suggests that any of those choices can be proved by the right player.
Screenshot of Siliconera
Oxenfree 2, In many ways, it feels like more, but also feels like it builds on everything that came before. The age difference with the new cast brings many contrasts compared to the original. Many plot themes from the original are finally bound here. And we also get to see more of the main town on the mainland, only mentioned in the original.
The important thing is to have played Oxenfree before the next one, so it’s useful that it’s available on most modern systems. Many of the plot beats only hit me as hard as they did because of what I remember from the first game and the ending could have had less impact without knowing what happened before that. However, this is a double-edged sword, as what you learn in that game removes much of the mystery in this game. As a result, it can feel less stressful, as terror is no longer a scary unknown. There are still some excellent spooky moments, but I certainly don’t wonder what the hell is going on as much as the first.
Oxenfree 2 is a sequel worth the wait. If you’re a fan of the first game, and I’m sure it is, this game will give you more of what you love. Like the first game, it raises complex questions about the choices we make in life and the direction they might take us, all wrapped up in a number of similar horror effects. creepy self. If you are in need of a narrative adventure game that focuses on time in many ways, Oxenfree 2 is necessary.
Oxenfree 2: Lost signal released on July 12, 2023 for Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, PS5 and mobile platforms via Netflix.
