Episodic games are an interesting evolution. If you’re being cynical, they're a legitimisation of the ‘early access’ format: a way to secure investment based on a glorified demo of a game, with a larger windfall when all the chapters are finished. A few critics have suggested that Telltale titles dip markedly in quality after their first episode, as the studio’s best talent is shunted around its growing portfolio of projects.
If you’re like me, they represent a fascinating and ongoing experiment with narrative structure. Having spent most of their lifetime attempting to ape cinema with FMVs and flashy set pieces, games are starting to shift with consumer interest in binge-watching and boxsets. Suddenly the clamour to create an interactive primetime drama is showing us the potential and pitfalls of a more truncated story.
In many ways, Life is Strange Episode 2 is the perfect prototype. Where the first instalment was largely scene-setting, recounting a plot familiar to the small screen, the subtle tweaks to Telltale’s leaden gameplay are starting to come to the fore. Simple puzzles and memory exercises may not be the apex of the format, but the assured combination of time travel mechanics and some genuinely powerful moments of drama have set an assuredly high standard.
Things begin a little more serenely this time around. We wake to the familiar strains of the indie-folk soundtrack, and find Max has immersed herself in books on time travel theory to help decipher her new powers. From here on it’s another ‘day in the life’ scenario, as your choices from the first episode begin to impose themselves on events, and you gather information to solve the problems and mysteries that inevitably appear around you.
While it’s always hard to assess the genuine impact of earlier decisions – it’s clear that in some instances, both choices result in the same conclusion – there is a genuine sense of an already wildly branching story. Opting to wade into events early on makes you a target this time around, and that sense of vulnerability will leave you second-guessing decisions which, while morally sound, could put you at greater personal risk.
If you’re like me, you missed a few choices in episode one simply by not snooping around enough. Having characterised Max as a retiring, nerdy type, the familiar logic of perpetual time-wasting and loot farming seemed out of kilter. To its benefit, part two feels more like a classic point 'n' click adventure.
Having been introduced to the characters and setting, talking to every incidental student and lingering in someone’s room to pry through their belongings feels slightly more natural. Indeed, collecting evidence is a frequent motif in conversation, and occasional voice prompts direct you to explore – often to stumble into characters who note your prior lack of involvement.
A good job too. Life Is Strange Episode 2 comes to life with its incidental details. Traditional episodic storytelling dictates that the player oughn’t miss any major story beats, so that no decision and its consequences feels cheap. Game of Thrones, for example, may allow you to take or leave an item and change minor bits of dialogue, but it won’t let you miss the chance to take it.
What Life is Strange E2 manages is to reward attention and punish negligence in a way that never feels unfair. The natural encouragement to examine the environment, take pictures for your scrapbook and help characters seems like mere completionism, but in the game’s great twist, seemingly fatuous details from two hours prior can sway a life or death decision.
The game’s central mechanic has also been cleverly adapted to serve the drama. In one sequence, your rewind ability is reminiscent of a low-stakes Prince of Persia, repeatedly buying time to solve a simple puzzle and prevent an imminent disaster. But we learn here that the power isn’t infinite, and more interestingly is potentially damaging, both to the future and our protagonist.
Having trained you with observational exercises, memorising future events and relaying them in the past, the game removes your abilities in crucial moments, leaving you with only the information you've gleaned. Suddenly your next four dialogue options could lead to an irreversible tragedy.
It’s comparable to the snap judgements in The Walking Dead, but it’s more 'end of year exam' than a binary decision. Fail to brush up, and the game becomes Russian roulette; the dialogue wheel the chamber.
There are slip-ups. One choice to ignore a phonecall is so telegraphed in its outcome that I can scarcely include it here, lest I spoil the ending. A fetch quest halfway through for five bottles in a scrapyard is an inelegant queue to explore the landscape.
And while the best gets better, the weaker elements stay relatively untouched. The dialogue is still infuriating, an artless mix of Juno’s attempted authenticity and Borderlands’ reference based humour. I was about ready to quit when a character revealed their licence plate as “TWNPKS”, and the line “Why me? I’m just a geek girl in some small town” deserves its own entry on TV Tropes. The voice acting, generally strong in episode one, is subpar among the new characters, though the lip syncing has been upgraded to a functional if unspectacular level.
There’s an old maxim in traditional storytelling that characters are plot. You populate your story with strong enough personalities, flesh out their lives, and the story almost writes itself. What’s fascinating about episodic games like Life is Strange is how mechanics serve the story. Derivative, poorly drawn characters should be the death knell for a story driven drama. And yet the framework upon which the story hangs is so strong, it enlivens it.
Good writing stems from a good author, but the balance of player input with TV’s linear narratives is still a point of contention. While adaptations of big IPs seem compelled to be less gamey, Life is Strange is taking us in a more interesting direction, one that might change the format forever. Plot is important, but mechanics may maketh man.
If you missed our Episode One review and got this far, you can find that here. If you're up to Episode Three, that's here too!
“Potentially game-changing”