Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals' villains are retrospectively infiltrating the original game

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"If we're going to beat wha■ ever is invading the r🀫dio waves, we're going to need your hel🀫"

Oxenfree 2
(Image credit: Night School Studio)

Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals developer Night School Studio has devised a novel way of introducing us to the antagonists we'll be meeting in the sequel by patching them into the first game.

Following a flurry of spooky tweets and a recent update for the game on PC – and sadly, PC is the only place you can experience this right now; Night School says it hopes "to bring it to other platforms in the near future" – it looks like new fourth-wall-breaking content is coming to the five-year-old horror game.

PC players who have installed the update and are jumping back into Oxenfree now will see a number of new radio transmissions that hint at what's to come in the highly-anticipated sequel, intimating that the new villains are so strong, they're retrospectively infiltrating the source code of the original game.

"We tried to stop it. We failed," states the first in a series of excellent, and mysterious, tweets on the developer's official Twitter (thanks, PCGN). "Signals are breaking through into OXENFREE and we can't block them, no matter how many patches or changes we m🀫ke to the game. We're in troubl🀰. All of us."

Fully embracing the phenomena of ARG world-building, the messages are getting even more garbled, including the responses to excited players on social media. The most recent reads: "If we're going to beat wha■ ever is invading the r🀫dio waves, we're going to need your hel🀫. Hard🀰n Tower. Epipha◼︎y Fields. Fo🀫t Milner. Download this new patch, 🀫o there, and tell us what you hear," - while the most recent tweet says: "More signals. We can't stop them. Need your help. 89.🁢 🀫🀰■🀫🀰◼︎🀫 7🀫■." 

"Five years after the events of Oxenfree, Riley returns to her hometown of Camena to investigate mysterious radio signals," reads the sequel's new Steam page. "What she finds is more than she bargained for." 

Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals is expected to release in the latter half of 2022.

"The story gets off to a great start, introducing us to its fun cast and setting up the mystery," we wrote in GamesRadar+'s Oxenfree review when it was released in 2016. "It's when the island's threat starts revealing itself that the narrative becomes less intriguing. 

"Early moments when the island itself seems to change – with surreal images flashing onscreen, your radio distorting and scratch marks covering the borders, as if you're trapped in a paused VHS tape – these are genuinely unsettling."

Here are 25 new indie games to keep on your radar in 2021 or – if it's more horror you're after – here are our tips for the very best horror games.

Vikki Blake
Vikki Blake
Weekend Reporter, GamesRadar+

Vikki Blake is GamesRadar+'s Weekend Reporter. Vikki works tirelessly to ensure that you have something to read on the days of the week beginning with 'S', and can also be found contributing to outlets including the BBC, Eurogamer, and GameIndustry.biz. Vikki also runs a weekly games column at NME, and can be frequently found talking about Destiny 2 and Silent Hill on Twitter.