Oxenfree is a graphic adventure game created and published by Night School Studio. It was first released for OS X, Windows, and Xbox One in January 2016. Later in 2016, versions for PlayStation 4 and Linux became available. In 2017, the game was released for iOS, Android, and Nintendo Switch. In Oxenfree, players take on the role of Alex, a teenage girl who visits a local island for a weekend trip. Strange and seemingly supernatural events happen, and Alex and her friends must discover the island’s hidden secrets.
Oxenfree is Night School Studio’s first game. The developers were inspired by classic teen movies and coming-of-age shows. They aimed to make a story-focused game without cutscenes, letting players explore the environment freely. The game’s visuals combine dark, natural, and old-style elements with bright, geometric, and modern ones. The soundtrack was composed by musician scntfc, who used both digital music production and vintage analog tape recorders and receivers.
When Oxenfree was released, it came with development documentaries, an alternate reality game, and a collector’s edition. Critics generally praised the game’s presentation and characters, though some felt the story could have been more complete. The game was nominated for several awards, including "Best Narrative" at The Game Awards 2016 and "Outstanding Achievement in Story" at the 20th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards. A sequel, Oxenfree II: Lost Signals, was released on July 12, 2023. A television series based on the game is also being developed.
Gameplay
Oxenfree is a graphic adventure game viewed from a 2.5D perspective, where 3D characters move through 2D environments. The player controls Alex, a teenager who travels to a nearby island with friends. While on the island, Alex and the group accidentally release a mysterious force. To resolve the situation, Alex and friends must discover what the force is and find a way to stop it.
The game uses a "walk and talk" system: instead of having conversations during cutscenes, speech bubbles appear above Alex's head, offering two or three dialogue choices. At the same time, Alex can move freely around the game world. During conversations, players can choose dialogue options anytime, such as waiting for others to speak, interrupting, or staying quiet. Some choices trigger a thought bubble showing Alex, indicating how the decision affects relationships with other characters.
Interactive objects in the game world have a small circle next to them. Puzzles are solved by adjusting the correct frequency on Alex's handheld radio, which can unlock doors, communicate with ghosts, or operate tape recorders by winding them at the right speed. The game has no "game over" conditions. Instead, the player's choices and how they interact with characters determine which of several possible endings they experience.
Plot
Alex (Erin Yvette), a teenager, is on the last ferry heading to Edwards Island, a fictional place, for a weekend party. She is joined by Ren (Aaron Kuban), her friend who enjoys relaxing, and Jonas (Gavin Hammon), her new stepbrother. On the island, Alex and her friends meet Clarissa (Avital Ash), the former girlfriend of Alex’s deceased brother, Michael, and Nona (Brittani Johnson), Clarissa’s best friend and Ren’s romantic interest. Ren explains that the island was once a military base and that Maggie Adler, the island’s only permanent resident, recently passed away. After camping on the beach, Alex, Ren, and Jonas explore nearby caves, where it is said that certain radio frequencies cause strange, supernatural events. In a small cave, Alex tunes her radio to a floating shape and accidentally creates a dimensional rift. A voice answers, and the teens see visions before losing consciousness. Jonas and Alex wake up near a communications tower on the island. Ren calls from the woods, having also passed out, while Clarissa calls from the abandoned military base.
In the woods, Jonas and Alex experience supernatural events, such as Alex’s reflection in the water speaking to her, objects moving on their own, and time repeating itself. Time stops repeating when Alex plays a reel-to-reel tape. They spot Nona, who says she saw a different version of Jonas and Alex. Alex and Jonas find Ren, but after another time loop, they discover him possessed by a "ghost." Using the radio, Alex creates another rift, returning Ren to normal. Ren and Nona return to the tower.
At the military base, Alex sees her reflection in a mirror, which gives her advice. A ghost questions them and takes control of Jonas, revealing that the ghosts are the crew of the submarine USS Kanaloa, which was believed to be lost at sea. Alex creates another rift, freeing Jonas. They find Clarissa, but time loops to show her jumping to her death before disappearing. Nona, Alex, Jonas, and Ren reunite at Harden Tower. Unable to send a radio signal off the island, Ren suggests finding the key to Maggie Adler’s estate, where she kept a boat. At Adler’s estate, a possessed Clarissa speaks with Alex. Clarissa’s conversations and letters from Maggie Adler explain that Adler mistakenly believed scrambled messages from Kanaloa were from enemies, causing the submarine to be sunk by friendly fire. The crew was not killed but sent to another dimension because of the submarine’s experimental nuclear reactor. Adler and her friend Anna tried to communicate with the Kanaloa crew using a radio, but Anna was pulled through the rift. The Kanaloa crew plans to use Alex and her friends’ bodies to escape the dimension, keeping them on the island long enough for their possession attempts to succeed.
Alex and the group learn Maggie Adler’s plan to fix the rifts: crossing to the other side of them and tuning the radio within. Alex repeatedly returns to the past, especially moments she shared with Michael. A ghost takes control of Jonas and offers to spare Alex and her friends if they leave Clarissa behind. Returning to the caves, Alex tunes into a rift that sends her into a void. There, she meets the possessed Clarissa, and the ghosts warn that closing the rift will cause Alex’s death and trap Clarissa with them. Alex has three choices: leave through the rift, erasing Clarissa from existence; close the rift, trapping Clarissa with the ghosts; or, if she has found letters from Maggie Adler that name crew members, she can appeal directly to them, convincing them to let Clarissa and her go. Alex’s reflection, which gave her advice, is revealed to be her future self. She returns to a conversation with Michael, who admits he and Clarissa plan to move away and asks for Alex’s advice. Time then corrects itself.
Alex wakes up with the others on the ferry heading home. Jonas tells her that whatever she did fixed the rift and that everything is normal. Everyone shares that, for a short time, they revisited memories. They then promise not to tell anyone about their experiences. Nona takes a final group photo.
In an epilogue, Alex describes the characters’ fates, with Nona’s picture of the group shown and outcomes depending on choices made during the game. Alex also shares her future plans, such as attending college or taking time off. The screen flickers, and Alex tells the player she is going to Edwards Island and meeting Jonas for the first time, revealing that time is still looping.
If the player starts a new game using the same save file (New Game Plus), Alex can send herself a message from the island. After the epilogue, a new scene shows Alex, Jonas, and Ren at a supermarket waiting to buy alcohol before boarding the ferry. Alex tunes her radio and receives a message from her future self. Depending on the message and the player’s response, Alex, Jonas, and Ren may decide not to go to Edwards Island at all, ending the loop.
Development
Cousins Sean Krankel and Adam Hines started Night School Studio in 2014. They had always wanted to work together on a video game. Hines had previously worked on story-focused games at Telltale Games, such as Wolf Among Us. Krankel had met or worked with future members of Night School while working at Disney. Both wanted to create a game that told its story in a new and different way.
Krankel and Hines studied other story-focused games and noticed that most had either fixed, set-piece stories or branching stories that relied on cut scenes and player choices. They wondered, "Why not let players move freely while exploring a story that branches in different directions?" They aimed to make communication a central part of the game, giving players more freedom than previous games. They wanted to avoid cut scenes entirely, allowing players to move freely, talk to friends, and interact with strange beings. Instead of creating gameplay first and adding a story later, Night School focused on building gameplay that would support the story they wanted to tell. Because the team was small, they had to plan the game carefully to keep it manageable. This included limiting the complexity of branching dialogue options to prevent them from becoming too overwhelming.
To shape the story, Krankel and Hines looked to other media for inspiration. They wanted the game to include scary and supernatural elements but without being horror-focused. Krankel said they aimed for a "Spielberg-ian" style, with a sense of wonder and fun interactions with supernatural creatures. They were also influenced by coming-of-age stories, such as the film Stand by Me. Krankel mentioned that the character Lindsay Weir from the TV show Freaks and Geeks inspired the character Alex in the game.
Night School held a casting call for voice actors in the magazine Backstage. Before casting, they created placeholder subtitles for the game. Lead engineer Bryant Cannon said the game felt incomplete without voices, but once actors were added, the characters became believable. Hines directed the recording sessions, making changes to dialogue as needed. All actors recorded their lines separately and out of order, with their lines later combined in post-production.
The game Oxenfree was developed using the Unity game engine, Adobe Photoshop, and Autodesk Maya. Artist Heather Gross created the game's artwork, drawing from her childhood experiences. For example, Alex's outfit was based on clothing Gross wore as a child. The team wanted to show multiple characters, dialogue bubbles, and environments on screen at the same time. This influenced the game's two-dimensional style and the distance between characters and the player on screen. Gross designed backgrounds with parallax effects, using layered, painterly art. The dark, organic elements of the setting contrasted with the bright, geometric supernatural elements. Creating the game's major plot animations, art, and effects took longer than expected, but this process helped organize the story.
American composer and sound designer Andrew Rohrmann, who uses the alias scntfc, created the game's audio. Krankel met Rohrmann through a friend and was unaware of his experience in game music. Initially, Night School was unsure about the game's music style. They gave Rohrmann vague suggestions, such as "John Carpenter meets Boards of Canada," but were impressed with the results. Rohrmann aimed to make the music feel both analog and digital, creating a nostalgic sound without being tied to a specific time period. He combined digital recording techniques with analog methods, such as running sounds through old cassette decks and reel-to-reel tape. The shortwave radio Alex uses in the game was recorded using a World War II-era radio. Most of the music was not tied to specific scenes but instead matched certain moods. Rohrmann estimated that 90% of the songs in the final game were the same as his original demo recordings. The soundtrack was released on January 15, 2016, with a limited edition vinyl version released later.
Promotion and release
Night School shared a preview of the game on March 1, 2015, and made an official announcement four days later at the Game Developers Conference. In October 2015, it was announced that the game would be released in January 2016. This announcement happened at the same time as a second preview of the game. After the game was released, Skybound Entertainment contacted Night School to help create more content related to the game. In January 2016, Skybound released several episodes in their Creator Series, which explained details about the game, including its story, art, gameplay, and voice acting. Night School worked with iam8bit to produce a collector's edition of the game. This special version included items such as a cassette tape of a band from the game, a map of the island, a poster, and a code to play the game.
The PlayStation 4 (PS4) version of the game was announced on April 27 and released on May 31. This version added a feature called New Game+ and included changes specific to the PS4, such as using the DualShock 4 controller to control the game's radio. An iOS version of the game was released on the Apple App Store on March 16, 2017. The game was later added to Netflix's mobile gaming app in September 2022.
The game also has a special type of game called an alternate reality game (ARG). Inside the game, players can find radio frequencies that provide clues to a real phone number. This number led players to the Twitter account @xray9169363733. The account shared mysterious messages with codes, which pointed to a real-world location. On May 7, 2016, a YouTuber named Jesse Cox posted a video similar to the PS4 Oxenfree trailer but with certain letters highlighted in red. This led players to a website called edwardsisland.com. Messages on the site included the phrase "MILNER IS WARD," which confirmed that a special item would be hidden at Fort Ward, Washington. On June 11, 2016, fans of the ARG discovered the item: a box containing letters from Alex, a character in the game, from all possible timelines, and a manually operated tape player with two paper music tapes of songs from the game's soundtrack.
Reception
Oxenfree received positive reviews from critics, with each version of the game earning "generally favorable" ratings on Metacritic. Wired noted that the game shows thoughtful ideas about how games and players interact, and called it a "successful first game" for Night School. Destructoid praised the game for drawing inspiration from old movies while still feeling unique, saying it has a special style and mood. The reviewer also called it "possibly the best 'horror' game" they have played in years. Polygon's reviewer had a less positive opinion, stating that despite the game's strengths, they felt "unsatisfied" after playing it.
The game's audiovisual style was often highlighted as a strong point. Destructoid described the game's watercolor art style as "beautiful." Electronic Gaming Monthly compared Oxenfree's traditional media look to the more common retro pixel style used in many indie games. The magazine and others also noted how the soft, watercolor visuals contrasted with the sharp, digital effects used to show paranormal elements. Electronic Gaming Monthly called this contrast a "great success," while Destructoid said the soft visuals made the digital effects feel more unsettling.
Reviewers often mentioned that the game's dialogue felt realistic. Polygon said the game avoided using tired or overused speech, and GameSpot pointed out that character interactions became more complex as the game progressed. IGN, however, said that some characters, like Ren, had dialogue that felt annoying or forced. GamesTM and The A.V. Club said the game offered dialogue choices that felt natural and did not clearly label options as good or bad. Some reviewers, like VideoGamer.com's Tom Orry, said the script sometimes failed to show characters' real fear or stress in difficult situations. IGN's reviewer noted that some dialogue choices hurt relationships in the game, writing that this reminded players "you can't always win social situations," which helped keep the game's supernatural story connected to real life. Game Informer said the unclear results of some choices sometimes made the game confusing, as unexpected outcomes felt "wrong." In contrast, GameSpot said some dialogue choices had effects that only became clear later in the game, encouraging players to replay the game to try different options.
Polygon listed the game among the best of the decade.
Sequel
In 2021, Night School Studio announced that a sequel to Oxenfree, titled Oxenfree II: Lost Signals, would be released on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Android, iOS, and as a Netflix Games exclusive. The story takes place five years after the original game and follows a new character, Riley, an environmental researcher returning to her hometown of Camena to investigate mysterious radio signals. To connect with the sequel’s release, the developers updated the radio transmissions from the original Oxenfree. Originally planned for a 2021 release, the game was finally released on July 12, 2023.
Television series adaptation
In 2016, writer Robert Kirkman was planning to help adapt Oxenfree into a film through Skybound. Krankel said the film did not happen because of the complex Hollywood studio system. In 2021, Krankel reported that the project changed to a television series.