The creators of Oxenfree wanted to create a story-driven game that allowed “players to interact with stories in ways that other studios aren’t letting them” (“OXENFREE | Part 1: The Story”). So, it feels fitting to start with the actual story of the game. Oxenfree follows Alex, a senior in high school, as she and a few friends go to Edwards Island, an old military base nearby which a submarine had exploded fifty years ago, a senior party. Alex brings a radio to the island because, while it is not supposed to work on the island, older students had reported that you could hear weird things when you tuned the radio in particular spots. [Slight spoilers though I’m sure we all saw them coming] In the caves near the beach, Alex and Jonas, her new step-brother, encounter a strange floating triangle which grows larger when Alex tunes her radio to certain frequencies until a strange presence communicates with them using radio signals and tells them to leave. The pair are transported to another part of the island and must find the rest of their friends and figure out the mystery of the strange other-dimensional beings trapped on the island. What starts as a simple, carefree story of teenage mischief on an island with no adults turns into scary, interdimensional science fiction coming-of-age story. [End of slight spoilers]
Oxenfree reminded me in a way of games like Gone Home, in which you explore a space (the spooky island) and unlock the narrative (the source of the spooky events) as you explore. Alex navigates the island and interacts with certain objects to unlock new information that she can use later. The island itself tells the main story of the game, which centers around both Alex and her friends but also the beings trapped on the island who use objects to interact with the teenagers. Unlike in Gone Home, however, your protagonist she takes a more active role in what happens on the island, as opposed to simply uncovering information. Further, she is not alone. There are multiple characters with whom Alex interacts throughout the game. The game also gives you three response options to choose from, and the options even disappear if you take too long to choose (so, in theory, you could play the entire game without saying a word). This also creates what the creators call a branching narrative. There are multiple ways to play the game, and multiple different endings. This game actually ends up encouraging completionism because there is so much to explore and discover, and the game wants you to take your time and continue playing, even after you’ve finished the first time. (You really will want to play the game over again.) The game also isn’t played from the first-person perspective. You actually play from a more two-dimensional perspective, similar to Braid. The closest view you get of the characters is through diegetic pictures taken throughout the game. This allowed them to show the many different characters and places you can interact with during gameplay. It was also a conveniently cheaper way to make the game. Interestingly, for me, when playing the game for the first time, I didn’t notice that the first moment of the game isn’t a cutscene. In fact, there are no cutscenes in the game. You can always walk around or interact with the world at all points in the game. However, I did not realize this until I was given the option to speak for the first time and I realized I wasn’t watching a cutscene from far away, I was playing the game. Which is to say, you control the game at all times.
Oxenfree is a game entirely made up of choices. You decide where to walk, you decide what to say, you decide who you want to interact with. Of course, there is a path that you generally need to follow to reach the end of the game, but there are multiple different ways to reach the end of the game, and there are even multiple endings to the game. You as a player gets to make many choices, but you also do so as Alex. [Spoilers!] At the end of the game, she must make arguably the most important and emotionally charged decision of the entire game: does she bring her brother Michael back from the dead? Her brother comes up several times throughout the game, and Alex is very clearly incredibly affected by his death. In fact, she feels partly responsible for it because he died while swimming during the trip she asked him to take with her before he left. The characters of Maggie Adler and the “ghosts” are interesting foils to Alex in a way. Maggie Adler’s mistake lead to the deaths of 97 people, and she spent her whole life trying to deal with the guilt and make up for it. The “ghosts” are the people who were trapped in another dimension on the island after Maggie Adler’s mistake. They want to come back to the dimension where time works and other people live. They want to do this by using Alex and her friends. At one point, Alex implores the ghosts to leave her and her friends alone, and asks why they cannot simply move on and stop tormenting people. For Alex, Maggie, and the ghosts, all of them are dealing with grief or guilt or death in different ways. Maggie’s life becomes defined by her mistake and her grief. Alex could choose to let her life be defined by the grief of losing her brother and never deal with her feelings of culpability. The “ghosts” have not dealt with the reality of their own “deaths” and instead want to take over the lives of others so they can come back. Alex could choose not to deal with the reality of her brother’s death and could even get the chance to bring him back, but she might never know Jonas, who spent most of the game by her side and helping her through each obstacle. Her decisions will have consequences no matter what, it is simply a matter of choosing which consequences feel “worth it” enough. [End of spoilers!] The game is obviously very story-driven, but the direction the story takes is determined by choices you as a player make. There is not simply one story to follow or one path to take. The creators designed the game in order to tell their story more effectively. Oxenfree manages to be both a very narrative-driven game without feeling like it’s not a game you get to play. It is effective because gameplay and narrative go hand-in-hand. They are not opposed, and both complement and reinforce the other.
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