Maxine Caulfield, better known as Max (born September 21, 1995), is the main protagonist of Life is Strange: Double Exposure. She is a returning protagonist, having featured in the first Life is Strange game.
An Arcadia Bay native, Max spent time travelling as a freelance photographer, and has recently settled at Caledon University as a photographer and Artist in Residence. She is now at the centre of a new mystery on the campus surrounding her friend Safi.
Max has the supernatural ability to interact with time, originally manifesting in her Rewind power, she is now navigating changes to the atrophied power and discovering her new ability to shift her consciousness between timelines.
Personality[]
Max appears to have kept her nerdy, endearing personality into adulthood. Self-proclaimed as nosy, she has a curious streak and cannot help but become involved when it comes to protecting the people she cares about.
Compared to her emerging personality in the first game, Max is now a more fully realized version of herself and has grown in confidence since her time in Arcadia Bay.[1]
Despite having been years since the events of the original game, Max is still traumatised from the Arcadia Bay Storm, this is seen when she faints and has a nightmare of the storm, and the words from Max all those years ago can be heard: "I caused this... I caused all of this!" Max also fears that now that she is using her powers again, something could happen to Vermont, like what happened to Arcadia Bay.
Appearance[]
Max has shoulder-length auburn brown hair, blue eyes, and freckles. She is seen wearing rings on her right ring- and middle finger. When she's outside she wears a cyan jacket with a shoulder bag and yellow winter accessories, such as her gloves and beanie.
Biography[]
Demo 1[]
Max is seen watching the stars with Safi and Moses are on a balcony in Caledon University on a snowy night. As they listen to music and drink hot chocolate, Max learns that Safi has some good news, but does not want to share it. Max is determined to find out. After she unsuccessfully tries to convince Safi to explain the news, she asks Moses for help, who gives her a bottle cap and tells her that whoever has it must do as they're told. Max slips it into a candy box and tricks Safi into taking it. Safi discovers her and Moses's prank and she finally reveals the news: she met a publisher who is interested in her poems. Upon receiving a phone call, Safi leaves. After chatting with Moses, Max sees the moon and decides to take a photo, but she suffers head pains upon doing so. Max decides to head home; though Moses offers to give her a ride, she declines.
While listening to music from an iPod, Max walks through campus. She sees an owl on a statue and after taking a picture, she suffers from more head pains that causes her to fall unconscious and have memories of the Arcadia Bay storm. She regains conscious just as Moses finds her. Noticing footprints going into the forest, Max senses something is off and follows them, with Moses right behind her. Max spots Safi and follows her, but suddenly hears a gunshot. She is relieved to see Safi okay as she disappears around a corner. She finds Safi sitting on a bench, but upon touching her, she drops her camera and falls to the ground; she had been shot. As Moses catches up, the two are horrified by the death of their friend. Max grieves for Safi while Moses takes out his phone and calls the authorities.
Demo 2[]
Max visits Moses at the dorms as a detective named Vince Alderman is busy looking around. She learns that Moses hid Safi's camera in his office out of fear that it would fall into the hands of the police, leading the two to realize that Moses made a mistake doing this as the camera has evidence of the murder case. Vince then comes over and explains that maintenance tech is coming over to unlock Moses's office so he can investigate it, leading Max to see that she needs to get the camera before he does. He then has an unfriendly greeting with Max. The demo then skips to where Vince is talking to Moses, where Max uses this time to travel to Timeline 2. She finds the alternate Moses at work on a telescope in his office. After a musical ornament on a nearby Christmas tree gets her attention, Max criticizes Moses about it. As she indirectly tries to ask him about hiding places, the telescope almost falls, but Moses catches it in time. He asks Max to get an allen wrench from Carla. Not having enough time to do that, Max returns to Timeline 1, finds the wrench that she's looking for, and goes back to Timeline 2 to give it to Moses. After she asks about the writing on the wall, Moses explains that it has something to do with Safi. He then decides to make tea for Max. Discovering that the cabinet that Moses opened may be where the camera is, she takes the cabinet key and travels back to Timeline 1, She then uses the key to unlock the cabinet, but Vince's arrival forces her to hide. She takes refuge in Timeline 2 so that she can safely watch Vince without being seen. After evading Vince, she escapes upstairs.
Background[]
Max grew up in Arcadia Bay and became best friends with Chloe Price who lived just half a mile away. They were both "only children," which made them so much closer. They both engaged in many fun games and activities as well as daydreaming of their future and the adventures they would have together. Max has an enduring love of art and photography, getting her first camera (a Contax T2) at the age of six.[2]
In 2008, Chloe's father tragically died in a car crash. Max was at Chloe's house on that day and found this hard to deal with as William was like a father to her. Soon after this tragic event, Max had to move to Seattle with her parents, leaving Chloe to deal with her grief alone. According to the original game, Max didn't call or text Chloe at all over the five years she was in Seattle.
In late 2013, Max returned to her hometown of Arcadia Bay after winning a scholarship to study at Blackwell Academy. She had just turned 18 years old and was an aspiring photographer. After saving Chloe from being shot and killed by Nathan Prescott in one of Blackwell Academy's bathrooms, she discovers she had the ability to rewind time and even stop it in its tracks. While searching for clues to solve the mysterious disappearance of Chloe's friend, Rachel Amber, Max also discovers how to use her powers to either save the town of Arcadia Bay from a tornado, or save her best friend Chloe. After the events of the original game, Max vows never to use her powers again, seeing the dangerous things it could do.
If Arcadia Bay had perished in the storm in the original game, Max and Chloe's friendship continued into July, 2017 (as discovered in Life is Strange 2, Episode 5). It is unclear whether this particular timeline is consistent with the one we see in Double Exposure.
Max began traveling, working as a freelance photographer and artist. She settles at Caledon University six months prior to the start of Double Exposure, wanting to start fresh and escape her past. [1] Max has an exhibition at Caledon, in which her pictures are displayed. From the info plaque there, the exhibition is entitled "Walking with Ghosts".
The exhibit fits with Max's focus on work that captures "life that evades explanation", often featuring environmentally impacted areas and highlighting "everyday people on the brink of change" - a nice nod to the "Everyday Heroes" contest featured in the first game. One of the images featured depicts an abandoned diner, with booths that bear similarities to the Two Whales Diner in Arcadia Bay.
During her time before Caledon, she is credited with winning the IPA Award, and a National Geographic Fellowship. Her official position is noted as the "Hannah Hellerton Artist in Residence".
After Max's close friend Safi Llewellyn-Fayyad was murdered, she was still hearing her voice. This led Max to try and tap into her inactive powers to try and prevent Safi's murder, but instead realised it had evolved into the power to switch between timelines, and ended up in an alternate timeline where Safi is still alive, but still in grave danger.
Powers and Abilities[]
Main article: Max's Abilities
- Temporal Rewind: Max had the ability to rewind time around her. She would stay still while the flow of time reversed, and she would retain memories of what happened before rewinding. Any items on her would still remain with her. As part of Rewind, she also had other abilities such as prophetic visions, time travelling through photographs of herself, and temporarily freezing time. In Double Exposure, Max has let the Rewind power atrophy, "like losing fluency in a language", and is unable to use the original power. Though she cannot directly use her rewind, it can be activated in certain situations. This is seen in a part of the game where you hide from Detective Alderman in Moses' office, if he catches you, Max suffers a headache and finds herself in a hiding spot with Alderman still examining the area.
- Chronoskimming/Polarewind: Max's rewind also gave her the ability to travel further back into time by using photographs. She could change whatever she wanted before traveling back to the present, but doing this could change the entire timeline. For example, if Max chose to keep William from using his car (which would have led to a car accident), he would live but it would result in Chloe becoming paralysed and bound to a wheelchair.
- Timeline Shifting: Max swore she'd never use her rewind again, but after finding her friend Safi shot to death, she tries to use her powers to save her. Instead of rewinding time, Max is now able to transfer her consciousness between timelines. Focal points between the timelines known as "Shift spots" allow Max to effectively travel between two realities at a set location where the fabric of time is weak. Max's Shift power can also be used to gain a glimpse into the different realities through a "Pulse", which highlights differences without completely shifting.
- Max's Shift can also be used to swap items between the two timelines. This is seen in Moses' office when Detective Alderman is investigating. The barrel containing parts of Moses' telescope (which hasn't been assembled in the Dead timeline) started to glow, and after channeling her power, Max managed to transport the barrels to the Alive timeline and swapped the telescope with it.
Memorable Quotes[]
- "Let's thrash, shakabrah!"
Trivia[]
- TBA
Gallery[]
Main article: Maxine Caulfield (Double Exposure)/Gallery
