Players "have more agency in Oxenfree 2" and "don't have to play the first game"

Oxenfree II is looking like it's putting together all the ingredients that made the first one a great conversational atmospheric adventure and then some more. We played the first 30 minutes or so of Night School Studios' sequel at Summer Game Fest Play Days and it felt great and intriguing, but we don't want to tell you much more other than what we gathered some time ago with our previous hands-off preview, as this is mostly about the story and about how each player shapes their own experience with their choices.

However, we did have game director Bryant Cannon and lead writer Adam Hines at hand in L.A. and they were glad to answer a few questions to Gamereactor about what remains familiar to fans of the original and what evolves further in Lost Signals, all in the video interview below:

For those unaware at this point, Cannon recalls that "Riley is a 30-something environmental researcher who comes to Camena to investigate some strange radio signals that are messing with TVs and electronic equipment and whatnot, and what she finds is kind of the same thing that Alex and friends found in the first game: ghosts in a portal. She's obviously dealing with a lot of different things that the teens didn't have to deal with because of where she's at in life, but it's set against a very similar backdrop of supernatural goings-on that she and Jacob are investigating"

However, despite being the same place in Oregon just five years later, and despite the different references fans of the original will surely catch, "you don't have to play the first game", clarifies Hines in the video. "You can jump into the sequel kind of cold. We think that this one does a good job of, any information that you should have, or need to know from the first one, about like the rules of the world, about the main town, we kind of give you hints that we established there. There's a lot of nice references to the first one so you get a lot more out of it if you have played it but you absolutely don't have to".

And for those who thought that the first game felt a bit too linear, Cannon explains that "in terms of how your choices affect the game, the player has more agency in Oxenfree II. More agency to go where they think they need to go, kind of poke and prod at different areas of the map where they want to investigate, rather than just us telling people where to go the whole time. So we wanted to amp up that feeling like 'I'm driving this story', which I think will pay off a lot for players".

In the interview we also learn more about how the series' trademark dynamic dialogue evolves this time around by means of a walkie-talkie (L) that you can use whenever you want, which comes besides your good 'ol analogue radio (R) to tune in to different channels. Making the whole branching system work meant "just a lot of overwriting" for the writers, but the result is looking very promising so far thanks to the voice talent by actors such as Elizabeth "Liz" Saydah (Riley Poverly) and Joe Bianco (Jacob Summers).

All this naturally leads to even more hair-raising supernatural stuff, including the time tears in Camena taking you to 1952, or the fact that now there are human antagonists in the game, the creepy ritual-performing cult called Parentage.

Besides, and contrary to the original, the game director confirms that Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals will release on Netflix Games, PS4, PS5, Switch, and Steam including texts and subtitles localised to up to 30 languages from July 12 already, which for sure will allow many more fans of the genre to enjoy (and be scared by) Riley's adventure.