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I kept avoiding Oxenfree II: Lost Signals mostly because I never felt like Oxenfree needed a sequel. But since my friends and family are well aware how much I loved the first game back in 2016 because even 8 years later I keep recommending it to everyone, I got it as a gift. Finally, I sat down, and I played it.

Oxenfree II takes place in Camena, a small town right next to Edwards Island where the events on the first game happened. The protagonist, 30-something Riley, is an independent contractor recruited by a local research team to plant transmitters all around Camena to help them analyze abnormal frequencies that have been recently discovered. Jacob, another independent contractor, helps her with this task, providing a bunch of interesting trivia since he is a Camena local and spent all his life there. Later it is revealed that Jacob and Riley went to high school together, as she was also born and raised in Camena.

The first couple of hours — which is a lot in a game that is about 6 hours long — are wasted on explaining the whole plot of the first game to the player. Is the plot of the original Oxenfree that important to the sequel, you might ask? The answer is yes, because it's basically the same plot. The USS Kanaloa is at it again, only now there is no mystery to the events at all because you already know what's happening if you played the first game, and if you haven't, the sequel will drown you in the retelling so don't worry.

At about 3-hour mark I suddenly thought to myself that it must be the dullest, most uninteresting game I've played in the last decade. The thought was honestly alarming because I usually either like games, or dislike games, very few have left me this indifferent. So, let's talk about why Oxenfree II failed to elicit any emotions from me, considering how much I loved — and still love — the first Oxenfree game.

Riley

Okay, it's mostly Riley. Riley and bad writing, which are tightly intertwined when you think about it.

At its core, Oxenfree games are narrative-driven thrillers. You walk around trying to solve a mystery while exploring a group of characters and making character-related choices that are going to matter when you reach the end. Unfortunately, Oxenfree II falls completely flat when it comes to both narrative and thriller. Dialogues got much, much worse, but there's also more of them which is downright tragic. If in the first game your dialogue options could be somewhat clearly categorized into positive, negative and neutral responses, here they all blur into meaningless blabber. There's a reason to it though, and we'll get to it a little later.

As a protagonist, Riley is a complete failure. Protagonists are meant to sell you the illusion of the circumstances that you will hardly ever — or maybe never — find yourself in. A disappointing symbiosis of poor writing and a very one-note monotone voice actress, Riley won't sell you anything because she doesn't care. She is not interested in anything that's happening in Camena. She has no stakes in it. She doesn't react to anything in any way that would make you believe in the reality of the situation. She doesn't get scared, she doesn't get angry, she doesn't get excited or sad. It's always just a deep sigh — sometimes audible, sometimes between the lines — and the "I don't care" attitude of a person who came to finish a boring task and could not give a crap if it involved ghosts, time travel or getting possessed. At one point the ghosts tell her that they will "take her future". Well, Riley couldn't be bothered. You have the option to ask them what future they mean, but it's in the most casual nonchalant tone you can possibly imagine. This scene gets worse in retrospect because at the time you as a player do not know what future might be at stake, but Riley certainly does, and still seems completely unfazed. She reacts to everything that is happening in Camena as an adult who's been told about monsters under the bed: dismissively, even though the ghosts are real. That is why Oxenfree II is absolutely inept at scaring the player and actually being a thriller: Riley is never terrified or even slightly scared. The moments when she loops back in time, or when the lights suddenly go out, or the radio frequencies flood the room, are met with a "yeah yeah, the flickering lights, what else are you gonna do, smash the windows?" attitude. And it's rubbing on me as a player too. If the protagonist cannot be bothered, why should I be?..

There's no evolution of her character to speak of because there's no character. It's not that I can't sympathize with adult protagonists, I very much can, but Riley just isn't fleshed out well enough to give me anything to sympathize with. Over the course of the game, we learn that her mother left her when she was a baby and she was brought up by her father. Later they grew distant and now have strained relationships. But this is just background, I cannot do anything with it as a player. At no point in the game is there a possibility to change the past so that her mom won't leave, or to mend her relationships with her father – something that I would probably expect from an Oxenfree game. It's all already happened. Another major point in Riley's life that I won't spoil, also happened before the events of the game and I have no control over it; she has already made decisions and I can't unmake them to see a different outcome.

Oxenfree

Just compare it for a brief moment with Alex from the original Oxenfree, who at the start of the game has a lot going on. There's her best friend Ren; their relationships have been deteriorating for a while, but you can mend them if you'd like to, and support him in dating Nona. There's Alex' new stepbrother Jonas with whom she doesn't have much of a relationship yet, and you can help her form it. At the same time Alex is grieving because her brother Michael died and she is in perpetual conflict with his girlfriend Clarissa who holds her accountable for the accident. There are a lot of characters you can explore, and a lot of outcomes for their relationships that are the direct results of your words and actions. You can watch Alex transform and overcome her grief — or not; grow even more distant from everyone and end up alone — or not; accept Jonas and the new lives of both her parents — or not.

Riley, on the other hand, has nothing that you as a player can have any impact over. She's just a list of trivia.

Jacob

Jacob, surprisingly, fares a little better as a deuteragonist: he gets scared (maybe a little too much), he gets curious and generally has a more natural, relatable response to the whole ghost situation. In one scene he gets really aggressive, and you can see his other, less agreeable side, which is also nice and feels extraordinarily fresh after Riley's flat face. But that's until you realize it was a one-off occurrence and Jacob, in fact, will also play his entire part being very one-note. He continues to share a lot of his insecurities with Riley, but it doesn't lead to anything. Jacob doesn't face them for what they are, doesn't overcome them in any meaningful way; it's just endless rivers of dialogue about him being scared, being uncomfortable, still carrying embarrassments from many years ago, bearing grudges against teenage residents of Camena for their stupid pranks and so on and so forth but again, you have no way of helping him make peace with his past. Yes, you can stop him from punching a kid in one scene — or incite him to do it — but it doesn't impact his overall character in any way.

And it's honestly, a pity. I wish I could explore Jacob more because there seemed to be a glimpse of potential.

Other Characters

Other than Riley and Jacob we have three teenagers who are supposed to be the antagonistic force behind the ghost invasion. Olivia, their leader, cannot cope with the death of her parents, and that's supposed to be her main drive in this whole story. She doesn't have any other character traits, just an "evil teen with dead parents" sticker on her forehead, and that's it. There's no nuance to it. The other two, Violet and Charlie, appear twice, have no biography to speak of, and then just vanish. I have no clue who these kids are, they are just "Olivia's henchmen" cardboard cutouts. When you meet them for the first time, you have an option to treat them well, in which case they will help you the next — and last — time you meet them, or treat them poorly, in which case they won't help you. Discerning these two paths requires some big brain thinking: you can either punch Charlie in the face or not. Guess in which case he'll help you. The same goes for Violet: you can either be aggressive with her, or just let her be and tell her how to get home.

During the final scene it was obvious that the game expected me to care about Olivia. Oh, the audacity! I do not know anything about this girl apart from the fact that her parents tragically died; she appeared about three times during all of which she was yelling nonsense at me. However, I don't feel bad about not caring because Riley and Jacob certainly didn't either.

The Rest

Camena is bigger than Edwards Island but somehow incomparably more boring. The game is paced in a weird way where sometimes you get tired because Jacob and Riley are having a 20-minute long conversation about nothing, and other times you just hike equal amount of time in complete silence. Exploration mostly involves walking around and climbing, with collectibles appearing on the second or third time you pass a spot so it's impossible to collect things without backtracking. You have a radio, just like in the first game, but do not expect it to be a part of your exploration: there are no weird frequencies to tune into, no Morse code, no mysteries, no nothing. You'll just pull it out 5 times to snap someone out of ghost possession and that's about it.

Oxenfree II is a shallow, soulless attempt to recapture the incredible atmosphere of Oxenfree by reproducing the shell of the game but none of the parts that actually mattered. There is no character exploration, no character evolution, no mystery, no thriller — and no choice. Remember I told you that it's difficult to categorize Riley's answers and predict where they might lead? The answer to that conundrum is pretty simple: player choice doesn't impact anything.

Oxenfree

If you played the first one, you might remember that at the very end the game gives you a bunch of pie charts detailing how many players chose the same things as you did. How many people brought Ren and Nona together, how many people alienated Jonas; also, if you found all anomalies or Maggie's letters. Player choices made Oxenfree replayable and sparked curiosity because you could end up in very different relationships with all your friends. In Oxenfree II the same section is quite pathetic to look at. At the end you have to pick a character for a certain action, and you'll get a pie chart for that. There's also a stat of how many people were friendly with Jacob: the only outcome that required consistency throughout the game and not just choosing on the spot. And the last chart shows how many people took Jacob with them to the final scene. Oh, and you'll get to know how many letters you've found too.

It's all just a big disappointment, really. Playing Oxenfree II just made me incredibly sad. If you were thinking about playing it — don't bother, it's not worth your time. If you haven't played the first one — I highly recommend it. Oxenfree is a fantastic game that I've been in love with for the last 8 years. Some games just don't need sequels.

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Thank you very much for your time. Take care.

Oxenfree