Oxenfree is a graphic adventure game created and released by Night School Studio. It was first available on OS X, Windows, and Xbox One in January 2016. Later that year, versions for PlayStation 4 and Linux were released, followed by versions for iOS, Android, and Nintendo Switch in 2017. In Oxenfree, players take the role of Alex, a teenage girl who visits a local island for a weekend trip. After strange and supernatural events happen, Alex and her friends must discover the island’s hidden secrets.

This game is Night School Studio’s first project. The developers were inspired by classic teen movies and coming-of-age shows. They wanted to make a story-focused game without pre-recorded scenes, letting players explore the environment freely. The game’s visuals combine dark, natural, and old-style elements with bright, geometric, and modern designs. The soundtrack was created by musician scntfc, who used both digital music production and old 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 visuals 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 three-dimensional characters move through two-dimensional environments. The player controls Alex, a teenager who travels to a local island with friends. During the visit, Alex accidentally releases a supernatural force on the island. Alex and the group must then discover what the force is and how to stop it.

The game uses a "walk and talk" system: instead of having dialogue during special scenes, 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 at any time, such as waiting for others to speak, interrupting, or staying quiet. Some choices cause a thought bubble with Alex to appear above other characters, showing how the choice affects their relationships.

Objects in the game world that can be interacted with have a small circle next to them. Puzzles are solved by adjusting Alex’s handheld radio to the correct frequency, which can unlock doors or communicate with ghosts, or by winding tape recorders to the right speed. The game does not have a "game over" condition. Instead, the player’s choices and relationships with characters determine which of several possible endings the player will 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 love 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 cavern, Alex tunes her radio to a floating shape and accidentally creates a tear in reality. A voice answers, and the teens experience visions before losing consciousness. Jonas and Alex wake up near a communications tower on the island. Ren calls from the woods, where he also lost consciousness, while Clarissa calls from the old military fort on the island.

In the woods, Jonas and Alex face supernatural events, such as Alex’s reflection in the water speaking to her, objects moving without help, and time repeating itself. Time returns to normal when Alex plays a reel-to-reel tape. They spot Nona, who claims she saw an alternate version of Jonas and Alex. Alex and Jonas find Ren, but after another time loop, they find him possessed by a “ghost.” Using the radio, Alex creates another tear in reality, returning Ren to normal. Ren and Nona return to the tower.

At the military fort, Alex’s reflection appears in a mirror and gives her advice. A ghost questions them and possesses Jonas, revealing that the ghosts are the crew of the submarine USS Kanaloa, which was thought to be lost at sea. Alex creates another tear in reality, reviving Jonas. They find Clarissa, but time loops to her jumping to her death before disappearing. Nona, Alex, Jonas, and Ren regroup 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 talks with Alex. Her conversations and letters left by Maggie Adler explain that Adler mistakenly believed scrambled messages from Kanaloa were from an enemy, causing the submarine to be sunk by friendly fire. The crew was not killed but sent to another dimension due to the sub’s experimental nuclear reactor. Adler and her friend Anna tried to communicate with the Kanaloa crew via a radio, but Anna was pulled through the tear. 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 discover Maggie Adler’s plan to fix the tears in reality—crossing to the other side of them and tuning the radio within. Alex repeatedly loops back to the past, especially to times when she spoke with Michael. A ghost possesses Jonas and offers to spare Alex and her friends if they leave Clarissa behind. Returning to the caves, Alex tunes into a tear in reality, sending her into a void. She encounters the possessed Clarissa, and the ghosts warn Alex that closing the tear will cause her death and trap Clarissa with them. Alex can choose to leave, erasing Clarissa from existence; close the tear herself, trapping Clarissa with the ghosts; or, if she finds letters from Maggie Adler that name crew members, she can appeal to them directly, convincing them to let Clarissa and her go. The reflection giving Alex advice is revealed to be Alex from the future. She loops back to a conversation with Michael, who admits he and Clarissa plan to move away and asks for Alex’s advice. Time then returns to normal.

Alex wakes up with the others on the ferry heading home. Jonas tells her that whatever she did fixed the tear and everything is normal. Everyone reveals that, for a short time, they revisited memories. They then promise not to share their experiences. Nona takes a final group picture.

In an epilogue, Alex explains the characters’ fates, with Nona’s picture of the group shown and outcomes depending on choices made during the game:

• Clarissa’s friendship with Alex and Michael can be kept or broken. Clarissa can also be sacrificed to the tear, with no one remembering her except Alex. If saved, she may leave school or continue her studies.
• Ren and Nona may or may not be in a long-distance relationship based on Alex’s choices.
• Jonas’s relationship with Alex can be kept or broken.
• Michael can be revived if Alex encourages him not to move away in a time loop. If revived, Jonas and Alex will no longer be step-siblings. The player’s choices can also affect Michael’s relationship with Clarissa.

Alex describes her future plans, such as attending college in or out of her hometown or taking time off. Afterward, the screen flickers, and Alex tells the player she is going to Edwards Island and meeting Jonas for the first time, showing that time is still looping.

If the player starts a new game with the same save file (New Game Plus), Alex can send a message to herself 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. Tuning her radio, Alex receives a message from her future self. Depending on the message and the player’s response, Alex, Jonas, and Ren can choose not to go to Edwards Island, stopping the loop.

Development

Cousins Sean Krankel and Adam Hines started Night School Studio in 2014 after wanting to work together on a video game. Hines had previously worked on story-focused games like Wolf Among Us for Telltale Games, while Krankel had met or worked with future members of Night School at Disney. Hines and Krankel wanted to create a game with a unique storytelling method.

They studied other story-focused games and noticed that most had either linear stories with fixed scenes or branching stories influenced by player choices, told through cut scenes. Krankel said, "We thought, why not let players move freely while communicating, interacting, and exploring a branching story?" They wanted communication to be a central part of the game but with more freedom than previous games. Krankel explained, "We wanted to avoid cut scenes entirely, allowing players to move freely, talk with friends, and interact with other beings." Instead of designing gameplay first and adding a story later, Night School focused on creating gameplay that supported the story they wanted to tell. Because the team was small, Hines and Krankel had to plan a manageable game scope, ensuring that branching dialogue options did not become too complicated.

When developing the story, Krankel and Hines looked to other media for inspiration. They wanted the story to include scary and supernatural elements without being horror-focused. Krankel said, "We wanted something more like Spielberg’s films, with a sense of wonder and fun interactions with supernatural creatures." They were influenced by coming-of-age stories like the movie Stand by Me. Krankel noted that the character Lindsay Weir from the TV show Freaks and Geeks greatly influenced the character Alex.

Night School held a casting call for voice actors in the magazine Backstage. Before casting, the team created placeholder subtitles for the game. Lead engineer Bryant Cannon said that without the voices, he was unsure if the game would be enjoyable. After recording, he saw the characters as real people. Hines directed the recording sessions, allowing him to change dialogue if needed. All actors recorded their lines separately and out of order, with their lines combined later in post-production.

The game Oxenfree was made using the Unity game engine, Adobe Photoshop, and Autodesk Maya. Artist Heather Gross designed the game’s artwork, drawing inspiration from her childhood. Alex’s outfit was based on clothes Gross wore as a child. The team wanted to show multiple characters, dialogue bubbles, and environments on the screen at once, which influenced the game’s two-dimensional style and distance from the player. Gross created layered, painted backgrounds. The setting’s dark, organic elements contrasted with the bright, geometric supernatural elements. The animation, art, and effects for major story moments took longer than expected but helped organize the story.

Music composer Andrew Rohrmann, known as scntfc, created the game’s audio. Krankel knew Rohrmann through a friend and was unaware of his work in game music. Initially, Night School was unsure about the game’s music style. Hines said they gave Rohrmann "random" suggestions, like "John Carpenter meets Boards of Canada," but were impressed with the results. Krankel explained the goal was for the music to feel both analog and digital, "so it feels nostalgic without being tied to a specific time." Rohrmann used a mix of digital and analog techniques, such as running sounds through old cassette decks and reel-to-reel tape. The shortwave radio in the game was recorded using a World War II-era radio. Most of the music was not tied to specific scenes but to moods. Rohrmann estimated 90% of the game’s songs were the same as his original demo recordings. The soundtrack was released on January 15, 2016, with a limited vinyl edition released later.

Promotion and release

Night School shared a short preview of the game on March 1, 2015, and then made a full 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 news came with a second preview of the game. After the game was released, Skybound Entertainment asked Night School to help create more content for the game. In January 2016, Skybound shared several episodes in their Creator Series, which explained the story, art, gameplay, and voice acting of Oxenfree. Night School worked with iam8bit to make a special collector’s edition of the game. This edition included items like a cassette tape of a character’s band, 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 an alternate reality game (ARG) connected to it. Inside the game, players can find radio frequencies that lead to a real phone number. This number directed players to the Twitter account @xray9169363733. The account shared coded messages that pointed to a real-world location. On May 7, 2016, YouTuber Jesse Cox posted a video similar to the PS4 Oxenfree trailer, but with some letters highlighted in red. This led players to the website edwardsisland.com. Messages found there included the phrase “MILNER IS WARD,” which confirmed that a special item was hidden at Fort Ward, Washington. On June 11, 2016, fans of the ARG discovered the item: a box containing letters from a character named Alex from all the game’s possible timelines, along with a manually operated tape player and 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 praised the game for showing thoughtful ideas about how games and players interact, calling it a "successful first game" for Night School. Destructoid said the game took inspiration from old movies but still felt unique, noting that it created its own style and mood. The magazine also called it "the best 'horror' game" they had played in years. Polygon's reviewer was less enthusiastic, saying that even though the game had many good qualities, they felt "unsatisfied" after playing it.

Many reviewers highlighted the game's audio and visual elements 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 of indie games, saying the contrast was a positive feature. The magazine and others also noted how the soft, watercolor environment looked different from the sharp, digital effects used for paranormal elements, calling this a "massive success."

Reviewers often mentioned that the game's naturalistic dialogue was a strength. Polygon said the game avoided using lazy or overused speech, while GameSpot noted that character interactions became more complex as the game progressed. IGN, however, said some characters, like Ren, had dialogue that felt annoying or stiff. GamesTM and The A.V. Club said the game offered dialogue choices that felt realistic and not clearly labeled 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 pointed out that some dialogue choices hurt relationships in the game, adding that this reminded players they cannot always "win" social situations, which kept the game's supernatural story connected to real life. Game Informer said the unclear results of choices sometimes made the game confusing, as unexpected outcomes felt "wrong." In contrast, GameSpot appreciated that some consequences of dialogue choices only became clear later in the game, encouraging players to try different paths in multiple playthroughs.

Polygon listed the game as one of the best from the past ten years.

Sequel

In 2021, Night School Studio announced that a sequel, Oxenfree II: Lost Signals, would be released on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Android, iOS, and as a Netflix Games exclusive. The sequel takes place five years after Oxenfree and introduces a new character, Riley, an environmental researcher returning to her hometown of Camena to investigate strange radio transmissions. Night School Studio updated the radio transmissions in Oxenfree to connect with the sequel’s story. Originally planned for a 2021 release, the game was released on July 12, 2023.

Television series adaptation

In 2016, writer Robert Kirkman planned to help create a film version of Oxenfree through Skybound. Krankel explained that the film did not happen because of the complex Hollywood studio system. In 2021, it was reported that the project changed to a television series.