When Oxenfree launched in 2016, it was a visual and narrative gem from Night School Studio. The choice-driven story and dialogue with a supernatural coming-of-age plot and time-loop element created one of the most unique narrative experiences in gaming. But now the sequel has finally arrived and aims to have you relive it all once again.
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Oxenfree 2: Lost Signalsis set five years later in the neighboring town of Camena, with a new cast of characters facing the spooky wrath of alternate dimension anomalies. So is the new adventure worth the wait, or is there just no topping the original?
Beware of some major story spoilers for both Oxenfree and Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals below.
7Lost Signals: Map And Setting
Oxenfree 2 continues to do what all fantastic video game sequels like Jedi: Survivor, God of War Ragnarok, and The Last of Us Part 2 have accomplished, which is creating more expansive environments and improving the overall experience.
The first game took place on Edwards Island, a much smaller map with fewer points of interest than the larger coastal town of Camena. You had the Adler Estate, Fort Milner, the Comm Tower, and the caves by Beacon Beach, but it nowhere near matches the scope of the landmarks you’ll explore in Oxenfree 2.
And not only is Camena the more detailed map, but its setting is also much more mysterious and foreboding than Edwards Island, with plenty more mystery to discover than just the anomalies. Those mysteries will take you to areas like waterfalls, mines, caves, a Community Center, andan ominous Churchin a ghost town called Garland. The atmosphere in Oxenfree was sublime, but the sequel managed to surpass it.
6Lost Signals: Characters
This is a hard one, but the characters in the sequel have a slight edge over Alex and her friend group in the first game. It also depends on what perspective you’re coming in with andwho you can relate to more. Riley is a character in her thirties and more experienced in life, while Alex is a young high schooler, yet both are at a point where they feel stuck in their life, literally and figuratively.
Riley doesn’t have it figured out. She was formerly in the military, but now her job is on Camena setting up transmitters to capture anomalous frequencies, and she seems to have had past issues with sobriety. At the same time, Alex is a teen dealing with relationships, coping with her brother’s death, and getting used to having a stepfamily.
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Overall, Riley is an immediately likable character who’s quirky and carefree, strong-willed, level-headed, and unafraid to face danger. There’s also a heartwarming twist to her story where she has multiple interactions with her future son Rex showing the parallels between her parental bond and her dad’s.
The supporting characters also have more variety, especially over the walkie-talkie channels and your radio. Your walkie-talkie hosts your companion Evelyn, who naturally feels part of the team even though she’s not near. Together in the field with you is Jacob Summers, your old high school acquaintance who can be awkwardly charming whensharing memorable storiesand has an adorable dog named Athena. Minor characters like Rex, Violet, Charlie, and Maggie Adler are executed well.
5Lost Signals: Story
Lost Signals ultimately has the better story as well. The first Oxenfree was all about Alex’s struggle withgrieving her brother Michael. Alex also learned to form a bond with her stepbrother Jonas while saving the rest of their friends and figuring out the source of the mystery of the anomalies around Edwards Island. Oxenfree 2’s story is about a group that studies these frequencies but exhibits more layers, and the atmosphere gets even darker when they uncover the work of a more sinister cult called Parentage tied to Camena’s phenomena.
There are allusions to Parentage with flyers posted to the wall of the General Store, and the Community Center appears to be where they gathered. You also encounter a new group of teens led by Olivia, orphaned by parents who were leaders of Parentage, and she’susing their work to try and get back to them. It’s Olivia’s story as much as it is Riley’s.
You’re sent to multiple pasts, receive visitations from the future, and even get a chance to interact with Maggie Adler in addition to reading her letters. The connection to the first game, with all roads leading back to Edwards Island and Alex joining in to help you, ties everything beautifully together.
4Tie: Sound Design
Distorted sound effects, eerie whirring and static, strange and otherwordly chatter, and music creeping through the gameplay became the essential highlights of Oxenfree. Its effective sound design, including the branching dialogue conversations that carried on around areas, made the game as special as it was. This is even more pronounced in Lost Signals, utilizing more sounds with newly added elements, giving the ambient music a more Stranger Things vibe.
The dialogue system gets more subtle refinements in the sequel, especially noticeable in the tutorial zone. While you chat on the radio with Evelyn, as she gives you some opening information, you can click and point out the shops and hear how Evelyn will seamlessly shift to this new topic and then back to her original conversation.
3Lost Signals: Gameplay And Puzzles
There’s a drastic difference between the puzzles and gameplay with Oxenfree and Oxenfree 2. The radio puzzles in which you create triangular portals by finding the correct frequency remain the same, with a little more polish here. There are, however, interesting new puzzle mechanics, such as time tears and machines that aren’t quite like the ones you’d rewind in the first game. The transmitters work like little minigames themselves.
These new machines will have you align the patterns of geometric shapes, sometimes through the optical illusions of sound waves. Time tears function as portals to the past, where you’ll need to fulfill objectives by moving in and out of them. These can also come up in the many side quests available in the game from your otherworldly contacts.
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The traversal sees its fair share of new mechanics, primarily the new rappel feature, where you now have a rope to attach to various anchor points found on cliffs and use it to descend. There’s also shimmying and balancing across ledges and logs, and some wall climbing structures can break and make you find alternate routes.
2Tie: Art Style And Visual Design
As with sound, the art direction, character design, and watercolor environments defined Oxenfree. The supernatural elements had a nice balance between being frightening but not too grotesque, and all the areas were haunting and visually striking, everything working wonderfully in a 2.5D-style design. The use of polaroids to get a better glimpse of the characters was a solid design choice too.
The art style and character designs largely stay the same in Lost Signals, though graphically look much more refined, and the designs of new buildings and areas Camena has to offer are astounding. There’s a different style now seen with tears, and you may notice small details, like the black outlines of trees swaying with the wind.
1Verdict - Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals
Though Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals is declared the winner and is a terrific sequel across every category, you should really consider playing both games. Both are intriguing supernatural mysteries with strong, relatable protagonists and meaningful messages. The writing, branching dialogue system, sound design, and art is unlike any other game.
Where the sequel truly shines is its story, which explores many complex plotlines and ties them excellently together to the first game. The characters have compelling development, there are more chilling areas to investigate around the sprawling space of Camena, and you receive proper closure to the story.
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