Play it on: Mobile
Current goal: Stop those damn kids
Oxenfree is one of my favorite games ever. Its compelling combination of naturalistic, banter-y dialogue and spooky podcast-like storyline clicked strongly for me, entirely drawing me into its mysterious narrative. Peculiar radio signals, ghostly apparitions, and time and space not behaving properly, all experienced through the perspective of some smart-mouthed teens taking one last jaunt before starting college. I couldn’t recommend it to enough people.
Then in 2023, a sequel came out, and I didn’t play it. I didn’t want to play it. I think because I was just afraid it couldn’t recapture that moment, and that moment had been perfect. Also, because developer Night School’s intervening game, 2019’s Afterparty, didn’t work for me at all. But I’ve stopped being such a big silly, and driven by the desire to play something narratively strong while on a short vacation this holiday, but only equipped with my Android tablet, I remembered Oxenfree II comes as part of an active Netflix sub. And it’s great! It’s really great! It makes more mistakes than the original, bits of the story not quite adding up properly (perhaps because of choices I made, it really fails to explain why the two main characters are so antagonized by teenager Olivia), but it’s once again a triumph of stunning vocal performances and an intriguing (if frustratingly unbelievable—radios don’t work like that!) storyline. I’m very close to the end, and look forward to finally finding out how it all wraps up. — John Walker
