For this critical play, I decided to play Life Is Strange 2 created by French developer Dontnod Entertainment with Square Enix External Studios. The digital game, which can be played on different devices including Xbox One and macOS/Windows, followed Life Is Strange (the first one) which was released in 2016 and intended for ages 18+. I downloaded the game from Steam and played it on my Macbook.
In Life is Strange 2, the narrative is woven through two main mechanics – the first being the ability to move and collect items or interactions before progressing to the next step and the second being the ability for players to choose what happens next in the story (to a certain degree). The first game mechanic is vital in establishing the character’s backstory, especially highlighted in the first part of the game – when they are still in the house. In this scene, I found myself having to go through each room of the house to collect the different items for the party, and in turn, seeing different things that I could look at, but that weren’t perhaps part of the main story. These were things like their mom’s bike, which Sean in response to seeing the bike says “Why doesn’t dad just get rid of it?”, showing the player that Sean’s mom isn’t present in the story for some reason and that perhaps their dad still has lingering emotions. Most of understanding the Diaz family comes from these little vignettes of being able to click in and explore their home. In the Narrative Architecture Article from Studio 5B, the authors discussed how traditional tools used to develop narratives in movies or similar media, can’t be directly moved into creating narratives because narratives generally look different in games than in their film counterparts. This is seen through the heavy development of backstory through a combination of exploration in the house, allowing the player to click on aspects of the narrative that seem interesting to them, while still ensuring that vital elements of the story are incorporated, regardless of what the character clicks on or chooses as the next option.This is seen through the dad’s interest in cars, which becomes vital after Sean and Daniel go on the run. A player could click on the dad’s certificate on the wall in the house to find out that his dad has an interest in cars that stems from his time in Mexico, but the certificate itself is not a required part of the game – players could move on without clicking on it. However, the parts that players need to complete in addition to collecting the items on the party list are an interaction with Dad (where they find out about this interest, as they are walking into the garage to see the dad working on a car and dreaming of doing the same in Mexico), in addition to an interaction with Daniel which sets up the next scene. This helps create a “narratively compelling space,” specifically through the evocative space of a house. The house itself is simple, one level with a basement, which allows players to not have an overwhelming amount to explore and to ensure that certain spaces have a wealth of information in contrast to others (such as the garage and Daniel or Sean’s rooms in comparison to the living room and the bathroom).
The game also limits the story and what’s explorable through the architecture of the setting – specifically where a character can and can’t go. This is especially interesting, as the game itself can be considered an emergent narrative, where the player feels a sense of autonomy in being able to choose the next option or where they explore. This is seen in the forest, where the player can maneuver along a trail and has a lot of space to move along the trail itself, but not much room elsewhere. If the player chooses to move off the beaten path, it feels like they are running into a wall (the animation of them moving continues but the scene in front does not change). This mechanic does make sense, especially in considering that there needs to be a balance between freeform exploration and ensuring that the narrative remains roughly the same across players.
The game has one main arc and a short arc to set up the main arc – I would also argue that loops are present in the plot but not in a very explicit way. With each micro-narrative, even if they changed places, the underlying plot remained the same as the previous setting – they were trying to find a sense of home in this new place, Sean has to navigate explaining different things to Daniel while practicing patience and navigating his grief, then at some point to move to the next, there’s a threat of being caught or being unsafe.
I enjoyed the game, especially the narrative that the creators incorporated. My only critique of the game is the player’s reliance on remembering certain details (user recall). This is a very tiny critique and could be hard to implement without excessive back buttons for the dialogue, but even a small “task” box on the side to say, “Find dad’s wrench” or “Build a fire,” to give more clarity as to what the next task is. These objectives are only available when you access Sean’s inventory (which I shortly forgot about after starting the main arc).
There is an initial indication that at each “writing animation” the game is being saved, but it’s unclear if these are the checkpoints themselves that you can return to in the menu. As a player, I felt like those animations only showed up after large amounts of gameplay and I was hesitant to return to the last checkpoint because I was unclear as to what it was. Maybe there’s a way where players can press and hold a key to view different things they can access through the keyboard (for instance, the key to access inventory or the key to access text messages) – this way the game is accessible to those who do not game as often (inventory key might be universally “e” in multiple games, but if someone hasn’t played games before, this will not be intuitive).
The narrative of the game felt very novel and well-developed. The cinematic moments between different scenes where the player got to watch parts unfold, allowed the game to drive the next part of the narrative clearly, without the player feeling like they were forced to pick certain options or that they would get a narrative that wouldn’t fit the option they chose.
It is a well-thought-out, beautifully designed, and written game that I anticipate playing more of in the future!
