Life is Strange: Double Exposure won't let you "take a second stab" at tough decisions, but will tease you with what could've been

Life is Strange: Double Exposure won't follow in its predecessor's footsteps and let you do a double take on tough decisions.

Life is Strange originally toyed with the choose-your-own-adventure genre, with protagonist Max Caulfield's time-rewinding superpowers letting you erase decisions you didn't like the outcome for (maybe you didn't want to order the Belgian Waffle). However, the sequel Double Exposure is waving goodbye to the mechanic just as it welcomes Max back into the fold. 

In Max's mission to solve a murder mystery, she instead discovers a new Shift power that lets her briefly peek into an alternate timeline - a neat way to honor both of the original game's heart-breaking endings at the same time, while tying into Max's love of photography - though it makes things much tougher for the indecisive among us.

In an interview with Gamesradar+, game director Jonathan Stauder explains that the lack of rewindey abilities means that "this time around, [Max has] got to commit to those choices. She doesn't have the option to just rewind and try the other path. And so there's a lot more weight every time we do throw up one of those major decision points, and you have to really commit to one, knowing that you cannot go back and take a second stab at it."

We might be unable to erase our mistakes and live in another reality, but developer Deck Nine will tease us with the What Could've Been timeline anyway. Two timelines mean two variations on every character, so once major decisions do occur, you can see what might have happened to Double Exposure's cast in the alternate timeline.

"Most of the choices are character based," Stauder continues, "and they'll determine how your relationship with each character moves forward, you then can go to the other timeline, and usually get a window into either The Road Not Taken, or how things are playing out differently there. So you have a more immediate like examination of those effects, because they're very much right in front of your face."

We'll find out what the other timeline has in store for Max when Life is Strange: Double Exposure comes out on October 29 - maybe she's not a massive Final Fantasy 7 stan in the other one.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure devs on bringing back Max: “everybody now has the Max in their heads that we have to compete with.”