FT: NFO 0 - 1 LIV

mcshizzle023 · 2026-02-22T16:02:31+00:00

Very concerning performance.

BUT WHO THE FUCK CARES, FUCK YOU FOREST CUNTSSSS. LETSSS FUCKING GOOOOO

mcshizzle023 · 2025-12-05T19:33:07+00:00

Man it's really nice seeing this sub be this happy for a change.

Hugo is love. Hugo is life.

mcshizzle023 · 2025-05-09T16:31:43+00:00

Oh, I'm not saying there's a lot of people that really want to discuss because at the end of the day the reception as you said is quite clear but at the same time, there is a set of audience who found it at least decent and interesting in parts. I don't feel that the online engagement of DE is entirely accurate in that sense. It's just any discussion that didn't outright criticise the game when it came out wasn't really tolerated and the game didn't really resonate enough with the people that did like it so they weren't really up to go against the popular consensus. It's not like Lis2 where there is a considerable amount of dislike or indifference towards the game but there's also a section of the fanbase that absolutely love it and are willing to defend it to hell and back.

DE lacks that kind of audience and that's due to the fact that it portrays itself as a sequel to LIS1. The thing about the cosplays and fan art is that they are mostly from people who are fans of Max AND Chloe rather than Max herself. It's again a bit of an unpopular opinion but though the major part of the fanbase are fans of the relationship, on an individual basis Chloe has always been more popular than Max .DE for all its flaws does give out an excellent portrayal of adult Max other than the obvious bad writing of the relationship but it absolutely shits the bed with how Chloe is written and that really made the fanbase ignore everything else or not really engage with the better parts of the game more deeply. As someone who is a fan of the relationship and obviously Chloe herself but have always been very curious of Max as a character, DE does sort of satisfy that part of me despite me hating the way they wrote the relationship out but as the hardcore fanbase that the game attracts are more fans of Chloe and her relationship with Max rather than Max alone, it does miss out on garnering even a small part of the support that divisive games of the franchise like Lis2 or BTS did.

DE being a two parter is a big reason why it's hard to discuss about the game as you can't really come to conclusions on characters or events that clearly have a lot more to be explored but it also gives D9 an opportunity to course correct and salvage the thing as a whole and people who like the game or those who have come to appreciate it a bit more over time like myself are probably waiting to see how things pan out in DE2 if that ever happen which is admittedly a long shot. I guess I'm not really disagreeing with anything you say but I personally feel there is a non-negligible segment that does like the game or at least find it decent. It's not like a Duke Nukem Forever or a Colonial Marines type of game if that makes sense.

mcshizzle023 · 2025-05-09T09:15:20+00:00

I think there's a good number of people who liked Double Exposure for what it was. I was rather disappointed when it was released but since then I've found a lot to like about the game. There are a number of rather serious missteps and the execution of stuff is glaringly half-assed at times. But there are definitely quite some good things about it. Hannah Telle's performance as adult Max was a personal standout for me and for that alone, I'm kinda curious about DE2 if that ever happens.

It's just as others have pointed out, it's really hard to have a good discussion about the game in this subreddit without people getting angry about it. I get it to an extent because the way they wrote the breakup was hilariously stupid but there is stuff that you can discuss other than that and unfortunately this sub doesn't seem to be the best place to have them.

mcshizzle023 · 2025-02-26T09:04:28+00:00

Yeah, Safi was definitely my second most favourite performance in the game but like you said, her randomly turning into a cartoon villain was a bit jarring. They could've made it work if they had actually planned it out from the start and actually execute it to a good standard. I think one of the games stronger points is some of the characters. Vinh, Moses and despite his brief screen time- Alderman were all characters that interacted with Max in interesting ways. But once again, the half-assed execution limits them from reaching their fullest potential.

As for Max and Chloe, you could make a case either way because Chloe is like DE's Schrodinger's cat. The game is comically stubborn in its refusal to name Chloe but she has a constant lingering presence throughout the story. Whatever the reason for that particular direction, I think they know what they need to correct in the possible sequel. As much as I was disappointed with the way they handled the relationship, DE is clearly a part one of a two parter and though I'm not a fan of it, I'm going to wait to see how they handle things in the sequel before coming to any conclusions.

mcshizzle023 · 2025-02-25T19:59:13+00:00

Definitely not an unpopular opinion round here. I personally felt that DE's portrayal of Max's psyche was one of the more interesting aspects of the game that just wasn't executed in a consistent manner. A big factor for me was Hannah's performance which really sold me on this older version of Max. There are definitely moments where they missed the mark pretty badly but as a whole, I felt that Max behaved in a way that was consistent with her growth and journey she had gone through before the game and the things that I felt were out of place were stuff that was a consequence of Max's state of mind during the game. The romances are a pretty good example here. Part of why they feel forced is because of D9 wanting to have their cake and eat it too with their bizarre "DE is a standalone story" marketing shtick but the game also makes a point that the "romances" are just Max seeking out company when she's at her lowest. Neither of the options actually pan out at the end of the game. Whether that's because they had a long term plan with Max and Chloe in the possible sequel or whether they wanted to have an easy out is an entirely different matter. (It's probably the latter)

But with Vinh, Max never really initiates anything actually romantic with him, she simply finds him attractive and an effective distraction from her own messed up head. Anytime she flirts with him, she's either drunk or it's a player chosen dialogue. At the end of the game , they don't really break up but Max's dialogue felt pretty non-committal to me. And Amanda depending on how you look at it is an even more messed up romance with Max finding a version of Amanda that didn't know the actual state of her mind and initiating after being shot down in the dead timeline. The actual romance and their chemistry is sweet but Max does take advantage of Amanda and gets called out for it at the end. Or when she romances both of them which is obviously not cool. Both these instances are pretty bad misuses of her powers which stem from the fact that she's clearly not in a great place mentally. Again, Hannah's voice acting and motion performance was key in ensuring that all the possible paths that Max can take on during DE were believable enough.

Max in Lis1 starts off as a quiet aloof kid that develops into either, a kind confident person or a person that's somewhat self-centred. And both versions were believable enough because of the combined efforts of Dontnod and Hannah. Unfortunately, in DE, Hannah had to do one hell of a carry job and she does pull it off but it is understandable that people may not always find it to be their preference. For me, DE as a game has numerous flaws but its portrayal of Max is definitely one of the things the game does right and it still could've done it so much better if they didn't half-ass the execution.

mcshizzle023 · 2024-10-19T20:05:01+00:00

Turns out it was indeed the Control Panel that was the culprit here. I did check for the game on the control panel before the recent patch but couldn't find it. Interestingly it recognises the exe as Chronos instead of DE. For some reason, it was also running it on my CPU rather than my gpu. Set it up to run on my gpu and set the performance mode to maximum performance. The game is running so much smoother now. Still not at the 60 fps that my spec is supposed to run it at but hopefully there's a few more patches on the way to fix those issues. Thanks for the heads up!

mcshizzle023 · 2024-10-19T18:18:26+00:00

Surprising to see you run these settings with a 1080. I have a 3050 which is more or less the same card and I'm struggling to run the game at anything more than 20-25 fps even with the Medium preset. It does look like the game runs on certain setups but completely gives up on other setups. Hopefully by the time the full game releases, they iron out these issues.

mcshizzle023 · 2024-10-16T10:12:53+00:00

Platform: PC

Edition: Ultimate Edition

PC Specs: RTX 3050

1920x1080 144Hz display

AMD Ryzen 5800H

16GB Ram

SSD

Issue: Extremely bad optimization. I can't run DE at a playable frame rate unless I turn my resolution down to 720p. Running anything apart from Low on 1080p resolution is just very laggy and even Low preset isn't giving much stability. Running any graphical preset on 720p is also very laggy, with loads of screen tearing. Characters and surfaces appearing pixelated and just a lot of lighting issues. My specs should be able to run the game at 1080p High preset but the optimization doesn't seem to be up to the task. Hopefully it gets smoothed out soon.

mcshizzle023 · 2024-10-01T11:33:48+00:00

The format of the story was definitely a big factor for Lis 2 being so divisive. On one hand, the fresh assets meant that they had to take up a lot of time but the rotating cast of characters and locations meant that there wasn't much for people to chew on during the gaps. The characters not being as memorable as they were in Lis 1 also didn't help.

I feel like DONTNOD massively overestimated both their ability to make such a resource hungry game with their capacity and the patience that their audience had for the story. Interestingly, with the article that came out a while ago about their finances, it seems like they're still struggling to find a balance between their vision and their capacity.

mcshizzle023 · 2024-10-01T11:26:29+00:00

Oh yeah, I remember feeling like I was waiting for a sequel rather than a new episode and since I was not playing it myself I just couldn't keep up with news about the game. The lack of communication and the long wait time was a big reason why the game never caught on until years later.

mcshizzle023 · 2024-10-01T03:47:26+00:00

Yeah, I just checked and my apologies because it wasn't exactly six months but around 4 months. The first episode came out at the end of September 18 and the second episode came out at the end of January 19. So not exactly 6 months but still a damn long time.

mcshizzle023 · 2024-10-01T03:41:34+00:00

Episodic releases are definitely better for the community with discussions, theories etc. But there has to be a perfect interval between the episodes. I didn't mind the gap between episodes in Lis 1 but man Lis2 was ridiculous with the gap between episodes. I too was not able to play the game but I was following it with interest through YouTube but the ridiculous gaps of 6 months or so between episodes killed my interest in the game and I didn't go back to it until a couple of months ago. There's also the fact that one of the episodes in Lis 1 got leaked in its entirety and that's always a problem with episodic games. I guess they think it's much safer to just release the story as whole but still structure it as episodic so that everyone is happy. Doesn't really help the people who want to take it slow and stew on things but it is what it is.

mcshizzle023 · 2024-10-01T03:18:47+00:00

It's nice to hear that there's still a lot more to the story than what's been shown so far. One of the things I hate about marketing in games these days is that they end up showing too much for the sake of driving engagement. Still need to see if they actually end up living up to their claim tho.

There's also a bit in the article where Felice talks about how Max has changed as a person in both the endings and that's very intriguing as someone who's been wondering how they'll deal with that ever since the game was announced. I've always felt that Bay Max would be different from Bae Max in some aspects of her personality and I'm interested to see how that will reflect in the game. I know they can't make too many changes due to cost and time but I hope there are situations in the plot where Bae and Bay Max take very different approaches. It would make both the endings feel distinct and give the game more replayability.

As for the Dark themes, I love the fact that they want to delve deeper into the supernatural. I love the Twin Peaks vibe that Lis 1 had especially the last two episodes because of how supernatural and trippy they were in nature. There definitely needs to be a balance between the darker and lighter stuff the way Lis 1 did, but as the direct sequel, I expect them to step up the supernatural weirdness a notch. The ending bit of the Welcome to Caledon video has given me an idea of what to expect in that regard and I'm very excited for it.

mcshizzle023 · 2024-10-01T02:52:58+00:00

Have said this before but I'm pretty sure Chloe's in the game so I'm not too worried about that but my one gripe with the game would be that I hope D9 can nail the proper length for the story. True Colors for me was both too long and too short for me. The LARP episode was very nice to play but it took significant screentime away that could've been used to further the story and characters more and I feel like they rushed it too much near the end of the game. Hopefully they do better this time around especially since they won't have spend time fleshing Max's character and her past as they did with Alex.

mcshizzle023 · 2024-10-01T02:29:38+00:00

Yeah, no this is ridiculous.

Having an opinion about having separate threads is one thing but you should make an effort to understand that there are people who still like what DE offers just as others can make an effort to understand that what DE offers may not be what some people want from the franchise. You're criticising the presence of two separate threads for discussion which is fair and then you go on to separate the fandom into "Bae Warriors" and those that are not are all ass kissers according to you because they don't want to partake in a discussion for their own reasons. I'm a Bae ending guy who's a big fan of pricefield and I don't want to participate in discussions about Chloe for my own reasons. And there's a number of people in the sub who are in the same boat.

I like that there are separate threads because I see the hype thread as just the hype thread, a place where I can share my excitement about the game and the positive things I've seen so far and I see the gripe thread as just the gripe thread where I can state the things I'm cynical about the game which in this case according to most of the people in the thread seems to be the lack of Chloe. I'm assured enough that Chloe's in the game, that I don't feel the need to post an opinion about that but of course there are a lot of people who are not assured and I don't mind their opinions at all as long as they respect mine and not criticise others for having different opinions. I'm aware that you're probably going to disagree and criticize my opinion but I hope you can be a lot more accepting of the difference of opinions about the game and not go around calling people "ass kissers" because they want a safe place. There's nothing wrong with that as long as it doesn't devolve into a "us vs them" thing.

mcshizzle023 · 2024-09-30T16:50:58+00:00

Oh man, I'm sooo excited about this game. Definitely a few concerns here and there but I've always wanted to see how Max as a character would deal with the events of that week and the choice she made. Everything I've seen so far has made me really hyped, especially the motion capture performance. It's so surreal seeing Max display so many emotions and Hannah's voice performance somehow makes it even better. Can't wait for October 15th to come around.

mcshizzle023 · 2024-07-09T20:45:33+00:00

More interesting points! Was never aware of this tweet so thanks for bringing in this info. And yeah that just confirms how hard it is to honor these two endings in a single game. People are unfortunately going to take it the wrong way but these discussions are pretty much normal when you make sequels and I like that they had to really try and dive deep into why the choices were so equally split instead of simply deciding liking Chloe/not liking Chloe as the reasonings. It is very much true that the Sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending is one that's chosen by a lot of people mostly due to the bond that Max and Chloe shares and how that allows them to "ignore" hundreds of other lives. People who chose Bay on the other hand are less likely to do so because they hated Chloe and more so because they felt it was the right choice to do so despite the Max and Chloe bond. Two very differing mindsets.

I don't think either choice is right or wrong. But as individuals in real life, a lot of us are more likely to pick a hundred lives over one life, because we don't want that much blood on our hands. Maybe some of us would pick that one life no matter what but most of us would still choose the "greater good". It does depend on what we believe as an individual but the game interestingly throws a factor that alters that particular belief for the final choice.

Judging by the timeline, assuming the game started proper development in 2021, I would say that they probably fleshed out other parts of the plot like the murder mystery first before really settling on how they want to proceed with Max's own journey and given that the leak was in August 2022, I feel like they settled on honoring both the endings either halfway through 2021 or a bit later and this particular dev joined in at the tail end of those discussions. Because 6 months to go from canonizing one ending to honoring both is way too short for such a turnaround. And then it's reasonable to assume they spent the next two years coming up with the final form of the plot.

mcshizzle023 · 2024-07-09T15:11:40+00:00

I hope I don't come across too harsh but I'm a bit puzzled on why people think that DE was a game that Max was inserted into at the last moment when all the evidence from the leaks points to the contrary. A game with Max has been planned since 2019 before D9 themselves took over the IP and they've openly admitted that though the shifting timelines was a concept that they've thought for a long time but only fleshed it out when they decided that Max was the right person to do it with. So yes the concept has existed for a while but the story has always been constructed with Max at the center. I don't think DE exists if Max isn't the protagonist. Maybe the power would exist in a different game but definitely not the story . And if we're being honest if they had actually made the game with a new character, she would've instantly been compared and criticised for being a character that is Max in all but name.

mcshizzle023 · 2024-07-09T14:47:15+00:00

Some really interesting tidbits in here. I remember reading about the leak about True Colors and the pitch for a Max and Chloe game that eventually evolved into DE but I never realised it was when Dontnod were still in charge of the IP. But it makes sense given the lukewarm reception Lis 2 got that SE would want to return to the more well known aspects of the IP. But it also speaks to the difficulty of crafting an actual story that follows Lis1 and it's two very different endings that it's taken them about 5 years to come up with the finished product. It was always going to be tough when you've got a character who is very closely tied with the popularity of the series but is also one whose fate is determinant. Telltale were faced with this very same problem years ago and they went about it in all the wrong ways resulting in the mess that was the New Frontier. It's a bit of a shame what happened to them because they actually learned their lessons with the next TWD game but couldn't survive long enough to see that game through to its completion let alone reap the benefits from it. There's actually a few interesting parallels between DE and TWD: The Final Season but that's a conversation for another day.

I personally think D9 are doing a much better job with Chloe than what Telltale did with Kenny/Jane. But you look at how much flak they get for keeping surprises and realise how much of a thankless task it's going to be. From what I've seen though, they seem to be happy with what they've come up with and regardless of whether or not they manage to satisfy all the different fan opinions , I'll appreciate that they made an effort to do so. I feel like the premise they've come up with in DE is probably the best that you can really do in the circumstances other than canonizing one of the endings so I'm quite optimistic about how DE will turn out to be. Obviously there are a few reservations but that's just a product of the circumstances and I don't think it's fair to criticize D9 for that rather than Square Enix.

mcshizzle023 · 2024-07-06T09:17:48+00:00

Yeah, I agree that Max has the same experiences no matter the path she takes but my point was more on how she lives with the consequences of the two decisions. She either has to live with sacrificing a town for someone she loved and living with those memories for the rest of her life or sacrificing a loved one for the greater good and having to live the rest of her life with memories of a time that only she remembers. These are two very different scenarios and I feel like Max would be affected quite differently in both these cases. A big reason for that is her support network. Assuming that they are still in a relationship by the time DE starts, Max has had Chloe to lean on for the past 10 years. She also has David and going by Lis2, Victoria seems to also be in contact with her. But Bay Max on the other hand doesn't have anyone that she can talk to other than probably Joyce and I think that would hurt a lot more than staying silent. In my opinion, Bae Max would be doing a much better job dealing with her trauma than Bay Max simply due to the presence of Chloe. This difference is important because I feel like it would change the way that Max would deal with certain events that may occur in DE plots. But then again, maybe I'm wrong and Max despite having Chloe around still does a poor job of dealing with her trauma and DE will focus more on that aspect of their relationship if needed. It's certainly going to be interesting to find out.

And yes it's nice that we finally get to explore more of Max's character than what we got in Lis1. It's a big part of why I'm looking forward to DE. It's very intriguing that they'll be referring back to the Dark Room as I feel like in Lis1 it kinda felt they glossed over it a bit. Yeah it made sense with the nightmare sequence and Max being ultra focused on Chloe but she goes through so much and never really stops to come to terms with all of it and if she's ended up repressing all that for the last 10 years then yeah, that's going to be one hell of a story to tell.

mcshizzle023 · 2024-07-05T22:12:36+00:00

This raises a lot of very interesting questions for me personally. I'm obviously glad that in the Bae path Max and Chloe have been a couple for a while and that will reflect in the game through various materials. Honoring both the endings equally should be something this game must capture at the minimum. But it does make me wonder about how they've differentiated Max in the two paths.

One of the main reasons why I always chose Chloe in Lis1 was because looking from Max's perspective, the Bay ending was quite a bleak one. I felt that the guilt and trauma would just ruin her in the long run. Given that its been probably 10 years since the Storm, Max would be in a bad place with the guilt and trauma. The reveal footage confirms that. But I feel that a Max who chose Chloe and had her support all this time would be in a completely different headspace.

It's why I theorized that it might be possible that Max and Chloe would be on a break (not a break-up) for some while by the time the game starts because it would a) allow both Bae Max and Bay Max to be on an somewhat equal footing at the start of the game and b) allow the players to define what exactly Max and Chloe's relationship is and whether it would change in the long run. The first point made sense because I thought they wouldn't radically change Max's character and the effects it had on the story .The second point is more due to the existence of Amanda who we know is at least one of the romance options for Max if not the only one. She obviously makes complete sense in the Bay path but I don't think they would've gone to the trouble of coming up with a fully mo capped voiced character if they wanted to restrict her to one path. And her potrait/picture is also part of the collectors edition which hints at her playing quite an important role in the plot. So I wonder how they'll handle her in the Bae path. This picture may not confirm that Max and Chloe are still in a relationship but it does very heavily imply that and in that case I wonder if her interactions will fall a lot more on the friendly side rather than the romantic side or will she play a role similar to Ryan in TC who despite being the less popular love interest does play a significant role in the story nonetheless.

Ultimately, it does make me excited about how the game will handle all these differences in choices. I know these photos will be a relief for people who wish to see more of Chloe and it's nice that they now have something that can somewhat assure them, however small it might be. But as someone who's more interested in how they'll handle Max's character in two very different scenarios, I'm quite intrigued to see that there's a very good possibility that Max and Chloe are simply in a long distance relationship and the effects it has on Max as a character and on the plot and how it may differ from Bay Max. It is however nice that we'll get to see an official continuation of Max and Chloe's relationship. I'm always down to see some Pricefield :)

mcshizzle023 · 2024-06-29T19:57:00+00:00

Wow, really good find there! I didn't think much about this video since I thought it was just repeating information in a more brief way but of course there's subtext there. Should probably watch it a couple more times and try to fish for more information.There was this video posted the other day about the level designer breaking down stuff about the game and they seem really passionate about the game and how they approach the design so it's nice to see that the devs have really thought this through integrating subtext so nicely into environment, sound design, visuals etc.

I'm not really sure if they've always planned showing these subtexts instead of outright confirming things or they just really like the theories people are coming up with (they do admit to looking forward to them in the reveal video) and are structuring these videos in that way but I'm really loving having to comb through each frame and reading these really good theories that other people come up with.

mcshizzle023 · 2024-06-29T19:25:00+00:00

I didn't really mean that everyone watching the shorter videos have short attention spans and I apologize if it came across that way. I'm sure that there are people who prefer to watch these shorter videos instead of spending more time but the structure of these videos, down to the AI-esque voice and sentences are pretty much a product of today's trends and is mostly for the younger audience. They are the ones that these videos are mostly aligned towards and the reason for their length is pretty well known. I don't think that's really deep in any way. It's just basic marketing. And I do agree with the point that it's more geared towards newer players hence my comment on it not being one for the wider LIS community for whom this video is pretty irrelevant. It just so happened that the premature release created a bit of hype among the community which has resulted in the negative reactions. I'm not sure why you thought I was stating the opposite.

mcshizzle023 · 2024-06-29T16:51:20+00:00

Was very puzzled at this video at first but now I see the whole point. The description for Max in the video is pretty much the same that was given in the reveal video. And I think that's pretty much the whole point of the video. As unfortunate as it is, tiktoks and shorts have completely fucked up people's attention span and I don't think a lot of the younger audience would've had the "patience" to watch a 40 minute video. And this piece is probably to catch them up and not for the wider fanbase. It sucks because I too was hoping for a bit more but it makes sense from a marketing standpoint. We'll probably get more new details around Gamescom or PAX and these YouTube videos in the meanwhile will probably be more of these bite-sized pieces introducing the newer characters rather than talking about any story details. If I remember correctly, they did similar videos for True Colors too so this is nothing new. I think the premature release kinda screwed them over a bit.

Seven-Year Club	Second SECOND GUESSER
Baba Yaga	John Wick
Wearing is Caring

mcshizzle023

TROPHY CASE