Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals Preview - Stranger Things Are Happening
Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals has been on my radar for a while now. I've played most of the Tribeca Games 2022 selection over the past few days, and Oxenfree (along with Cuphead, which is DLC to a game I've already beaten) was the game I went in knowing the most about. It's a sequel, sure, but it's more of a spiritual/thematic sequel than a direct continuation. I knew Oxenfree 2 well enough because a couple of months back I had a hands-off preview of the sequel that went through the same section I was able to go hands-on with here. At the time, I was intrigued but left wanting. It was missing something, even if I couldn't quite put my finger on it. At Tribeca, Oxenfree 2 found what it was searching for.
On a raw gameplay level, Oxenfree 2 doesn't have all that much going on. I wandered through a section of caves that felt either at or very near the start of the game, with simple tasks like 'climb a rope' or 'jump a ledge'. This was clearly a bit of a tutorial, and there was a puzzle to figure out at the end of the demo, but I'm not sure it will get that much more sophisticated. I don't think gameplay is really the point here though, so much as it is the vehicle for the story. It's on the narratives and characters that the game will live and die, and on that level Oxenfree's preview showed me a strong foundation, but also a couple of potential cracks.
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Oxenfree is incredibly dialogue heavy. If you've played the first one, you'll know what I mean. You aren't just choosing responses, the way you might in a Telltale game or Life is Strange, you will select every single word protagonist Riley says. You're choosing the actual words too, not vague descriptions like 'be
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