Not only does it allow for a game so focused on its characters and location to deepen our understanding of those facets in ways that just couldn’t be done on a standard timeline, it also lends some appreciable grey area to Riley’s actions. I’m certainly a sucker for interdimensional rifts, and while Oxenfree is using them on a much smaller scale than, say, Ratchet and Clank, it seems no less integral to Oxenfree II’s story. There’s only one problem - they’re trying to pull off this bit of platforming and puzzle solving as the mines are, indeed, crumbling around them. Thankfully, in this time period, there’s a working elevator that, through a bit of quick puzzle solving, Riley and Jacob get moving in order to help them reach another time tear and return to their point of origin. In this case, the duo, while venturing through the tunnels that spread all throughout Camena (a surely handy exploration device for a world the developers estimate is about 2.5-3 times bigger than Edwards Island, though they noted players shouldn’t necessarily expect a sequel that’s three times as long to play), discovers a time tear that brings them back all the way to 1899, back before the mines were abandoned after a major collapse. They’ll allow Riley and her companions to journey through time to a point that will hopefully offer some assistance in their journey.
You see, time tears have started opening up around Camena.
I guess it’s also worth mentioning that Jacob was nervous because, well, he and Riley had ended up in 1899. It’s so key for moments like that to not feel kitschy and to be rooted in who these characters are, and it made me appreciate the scene all the more. That little game, more importantly, stems from a character beat - Jacob is pretty freaked out by everything happening, and the game helps to calm his nerves. I love moments like that, and have in Night School’s past games, so if the team can continue to deliver those personal, witty scenes like they do here, I can’t wait to see what else we might discuss while exploring Camena.
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You always have more forks in the road and more micro-choices on how to get to certain spots.”Īnother particular highlight demonstrating the relatable nature of the characters came when Jacob and Riley played a game in which they told each other a story word by word. 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.
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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. 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.
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