At its heart, Oxenfree is a ghost story that seamlessly weaves horror together with human tragedy. It recently celebrated its five-year anniversary, and, in my opinion, the story holds up even better now than it did upon release. I wondered, could I have made different choices? Who might I have saved? What was that? This approachable little indie game had caught me completely by surprise and sent me spinning, and I realized that I had severely underestimated it.īeneath the seemingly familiar surface of Oxenfree lurks a deeply affecting story about the ripple effect of loss, and is one of the best pieces of tragic horror created in the last decade. I hadn’t even noticed I was crying.įor weeks after finishing the game, it bounced around in my head. I reached up to wipe my eyes, tired from staring at the screen, and found my cheeks wet with tears. Instead, I sat back in my chair hours later, watching the end credits play with the wind knocked out of my lungs and a lump in my throat I couldn’t swallow. I expected some exciting twists and turns, choice-based gameplay (my favorite), and a fun, lightly spooky experience. I recently sat down to play Oxenfree, knowing very little about it besides the basic premise.
If you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it a hundred times-and if you’re a horror fan like me, you’ll happily see it a hundred more.
It’s a horror movie tale as old as time: a group of teens gather with intent to party, and a masked killer/evil spirit/mutant/trickster demon wreaks havoc on their innocent souls.
As far as premises go, Night School Studio’s Oxenfree seems to have a relatively straightforward one.