Oxenfree II: Lost Signals respects your intelligence. The sequel to 2016’s cult hit analog horror gem wastes little time before establishing its connection to the previous title, and from this early foundation, this follow up branches out in all directions, creating a second entry that feels rooted in what came before without feeling entirely beholden to it. Such a balance is no easy feat, yet Lost Signals finds its strongest moments as a narrative, and as a game, when it capitalizes on this uncanny connection. It’s the same old Oxenfree you know and love, only different – the same great flavor, but in a subtly different recipe. Put a different way, Oxenfree II wears the first Oxenfree game like a mask, or, perhaps like a sheet with eye holes cut out.
Whereas the original Oxenfree baited players a bit before revealing its central time loop mystery, Oxenfree II has barely introduced you to new protagonist Riley before time starts a-looping all over again, and you and your partner Jacob go from land surveyors to paranormal investigators in no time flat. Riley and Jacob are both instantly compelling and likable characters, with Riley as our primary protagonist radiating a compelling warmth at the same time as giving off a burnt out vibe that only makes her more relatable. Though dialogue options give you the choice to be friendly, professional, or mean to Jacob, I could never bring myself to put the poor guy down. He’s like a labrador retriever who wished to be a man.
One clear difference between Oxenfree and Oxenfree II is the type of people each game puts at its respective center. Whereas Oxenfree classic was a riff on teenage horror in the vein of Stephen King, with precocious high schooler Alex and her friends running afoul of mysterious forces, Oxenfree II has done some growing up. Both Riley and Jacob are fully grown adults, with entire lives of regrets and missed opportunities to reflect on. The contrast between teens and adults jumps from subtext to text pretty early in the plot, as Riley and Jacob encounter some troublesome youths with dubious plans, and Lost Signals’ thematic spine comes into focus: reckoning with the entire span of your life, however long or short it might be.
Whether the span of one’s life is long or short, Oxenfree II wants to make sure you spend that time talking it out, and these characters have quite a bit to say. The dialogue, and your choices within conversations, are all entertaining and clearly rooted in the characters, which can make for some engrossing scenes and also lend real gravity to moments where you feel like you’ve made the wrong decision. Accidentally offending Jacob or shutting down what might have been a moment of connection between Riley and a new friend feels consequential, and the rapid pace of the conversations means there’s no time to plan out your every response. You say what you say, and you have to go with the flow, which is a nice way to underline the theme of time and living with regrets.
However, not all regrets are earned. I did feel a few times that the prompt I chose in conversation led to a full response I didn’t intend. For example, at one point I chose an “I’m Sorry” prompt, thinking it would lead Riley to commiserate with someone, only for her to instead say “Sorry about that, but we need to stay focused.” The dismissive tone of her actual response felt out of left field compared to what I expected. Thankfully these moments of dissonance are rare, but they do make it harder to confidently choose your answers.
Amidst all these conversations, Oxenfree II isn’t content to just rehash the same old discussions or the same old time loops as before. Instead, taking a page from Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, much of Oxenfree II deals with characters becoming (as that book phrases it) “unstuck in time,” switching between past, present and future at a moment’s notice. These moments of chronal shuffling are always visually stunning and narratively meaty – especially when, since we control Riley, we can only infer what Jacob is seeing during these excursions. This added wrinkle leads to truly eye-feasting set pieces, all rendered in stunning detail.
Lost Signals retains Oxenfree’s distinct art style and character design. The long-limbed, geometric bodies call to mind the models from stop motion film studio Laika Productions (Coraline, Kubo & The Two Strings), and even though we stay fairly zoomed out for most of the adventure, every character carries themselves with a unique body language that conveys their particular personalities.
Beyond the characters, the environments are likewise just as atmospheric and impressive as before, with every element of this paranormal Pacific Northwest rendered in beautiful blues and greens. There’s a lot of darkness in Lost Signals, but the shadowy caves or looming cliffs always feel vivid and tangible. No area is ever boring or easy to ignore – the scenery you walk through remains at the forefront of your attention, which is important for a game where you actually don’t interact with the setting all that much outside of particular puzzle elements.
Really, that’s the biggest drawback of Oxenfree II: while narratively and visually it’s a lovely advancement over the original game, as far as gameplay goes, not too much has changed. You now dual-wield audio devices, with your radio on one shoulder button and your brand new walkie-talkie in the other, which provides a new vector for auditory scares, but in terms of actual gameplay, you’re still mostly navigating conversations as you walk from Point A to Point B. The adventure game DNA in Oxenfree II feels at times perfunctory to moving the story along, in a way that sometimes can’t hide the strings as you’re busily nudged to the next big set-piece.
All of these narrative heavy elements do lead to some extremely gratifying conclusions. You make a great many number of decisions in Lost Signals, some obviously big and some seemingly insignificant at the time, and all of them have far-reaching ramifications that shape how your story resolves. I’m excited to see how others navigate the highly variable narrative and fill out Lost Signals’ broad, branching narrative possibilities to their fullest.
While it might feel at times like more of the same, Oxenfree II is still an engrossing and heart-tugging piece of sci-fi intrigue, with some smart character writing and deeply imaginative show-stopping moments. It may feel a bit safe and dependent on its predecessor, but fans will still be pleasantly surprised by the new directions, even if the terrain still feels familiar at the end.
A copy of Oxenfree II: Lost Signals was provided by PR for the purposes of this review.
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