Oxenfree II: Lost Signals builds on what made the first game great

destructoid.com:

Since I played it back in 2018, Oxenfree has been one of my favorite games. It’s one of those stories that’s character-focused on top of everything else it has going for it, like a gorgeous art style, amazing VO performances, and one of the best implementations of a dialogue system in a game I’ve ever seen. I even found the gameplay, which mostly involves walking and climbing around Edwards Island, to be really engaging, mostly because of the conversations the characters had. For me, it captures the coming-of-age magic that something like Stranger Things season one had, and it’s one of the best narrative games of the last decade.

As one would expect, I’m pretty stoked for the sequel. I had been following any news surrounding Oxenfree II: Lost Signals since it was announced last year, and during the Tribeca Games Fest, I was fortunate enough to play a preview of the upcoming title. I am pleased to report back that this experience has only increased my hype for the release.

Here’s the thing — the team at Night School knows what made Oxenfree work the first time, and they’re not straying too far from that. The focus on “walk-and-talk” gameplay is still there, the climbing-through-creepy-caves exploration is definitely still there, and you’re still gonna use the radio to check out some creepy ghost signals, etc.

That’s not to say the games will be exactly the same — on the contrary, the story focuses on Riley, who is in her 30s, as opposed to the teenage characters of the first game. Now there are tears in the space-time continuum that players will enter and explore, and there’s a whole new group of antagonists who are a more active part of the story than in the first game. Basically, they’ve kept the heart of Oxenfree as