Characters / Oxenfree

Characters from the 2016 indie horror game Oxenfree. Beware of spoilers.

Alex

Alex

Voiced by: Erin Yvette

The game's protagonist. Alex is a rebellious teenager who came with her friends to Edwards Island.

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• Ambiguously Bi: When playing a round of "Marry, Screw, Kill" during the game of Truth-or-Slap with the group, Alex gives detailed answers for her female acquaintances, too, such as saying she would sleep with Nona because she seems "present and giving" and that she'd sleep with Clarissa because she's "obviously attractive." When she answers for Ren, she says she'd sleep with or marry him because there'd be no surprises and it would be less weird, suggesting that it would just be more comfortable because of how long they've known each other, not because she's attracted to him. Jonas ends up being exempt from the game due to being her stepbrother, leaving it up in the air what Alex's attraction level to men is beyond Ren.
• And I Must Scream: The ending implies that she's sealed away in the ghost dimension and is being forced to relive the game's events for all eternity. The sequel reveals that she and her friends were trapped in the ghost dimension, but they’re freed by Riley, Jacob, or Olivia in the end and are able to return to their lives.
  • New Game Plus: However, another playthrough implies that there's an infinite amount of Alexes and that every Alex eventually gets off the island and lives their life only for a new Alex to start their journey.
    • Seemingly, you can also avert this fate in this mode. If Alex warns herself not to go to the island, Alex, Ren, and Jonas go to Alfredo's for pizza, meaning she never tears open the rift, never has to go through the horrifying night, and never escapes the island while making a new Alex's story begin. It also means Michael is dead and puts it in question if Alex ever made up with Clarissa, bonded with Jonas and if Nona ended up with one of the boys.
• Childhood Friends: Ren has said he and Alex have known each other since grade school.
• Deadpan Snarker: Can be played this way.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: One of the achievements for the game is to end the night with everyone else hating you by being a miserable destructive monster to everyone as often as possible.
• Genki Girl: No matter how you play her, she comes off as being very excitable and outgoing.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Implied to have a stuffed animal collection, which Clarissa makes fun of.
• Height Angst: Subtly; When playing a round of "Marry, Screw, Kill" during the game of Truth-or-Slap with the group, one of the reasons she can give for marrying Clarissa is because she's tall and can reach the top shelf.
• Heroic Mime: It is possible to play Alex as a nearly mute character throughout the game. It even earns the player an achievement.
• Jerkass: Alex can be played as extremely sarcastic, selfish and outright malicious even. The player even gets an award for it.
• Like Brother and Sister: If you prevent Michael's death and Alex and Jonas bonded, then Alex and Jonas remain close friends despite never having been stepsiblings. Eventually, Alex comes to view Jonas as a second brother.
• Never My Fault: One way to play her is to have her constantly deny her role in releasing the ghosts as well as Michael's death.
• Nonconformist Dyed Hair: The only member of the cast with an unusual hair color and flashbacks depict her with the same auburn hair as her brother, indicating that her hair is dyed teal. She can also be played as a rebellious jerkass, but if her personality in the second game is any indication, she's a Nice Girl by default.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Alex is short for Alexandra, although she’s never called that by anyone who speaks to her.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Alex is the only one who can clearly remember the time loops. According to the ghosts, this is because she's the one causing them.
  • In the sequel, after she and her friends are freed from ghost dimension, she’s the only one able to remember what happened over the course of the first and second game.
• Sudden Sequel Heel Syndrome: In Oxenfree 2, having realised that she and her friends are forever trapped in the Sunken's world, her desperation causes her to try escaping by stealing the bodies of Riley and her friends. She does however eventually relent and feel remorseful about attempting this.
• Survivor's Guilt: In the second game, she expresses regret that Michael drowned instead of her, not only because she believes she does not deserve to live, but also because she thinks her friends could have avoided the fate of being trapped in the Sunken's world for all eternity if she had died all that time ago.
• Tragic Keepsake: Her red jacket belonged to her brother Michael once.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • The ghosts tell Alex that she is this, and they are right - Alex tuning into the frequency in the cave unleashed the ghosts and allowed them to begin messing with her friends.
  • Her request for Michael to swim with her one last time at Horn Lake before he leaves town with Clarissa is also the reason he drowned.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: The end of the second game strongly implies that Alex and Clarissa's relationship has been repaired offscreen and that they have developed this type of dynamic, as Clarissa returns to wait for Alex when she stops to talk to Riley and actively wants to include her in their group gathering. All while remaining snarky toward Alex, which Alex does not appear to mind.

Jonas

Jonas

Voiced by: Gavin Hammon

Alex's new stepbrother. He's rumored to be a criminal, but he's friendly enough.

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• Dark and Troubled Past: He grew up in a crime-ridden town and went to juvenile detention for viciously beating up another kid for throwing a baseball at his head.
• Deadpan Snarker: Some of his dialogue, especially if Alex is played as a Heroic Mime.
• Dude, Not Funny!: He'll have this reaction if players choose to have Alex sit in the chair and scream.
• The Lancer: He's Alex's companion for most of the game.
• Like Brother and Sister: If you prevent Michael's death and Alex and Jonas bonded, then Alex and Jonas remain close friends despite never having been step-siblings. Eventually, Alex comes to view Jonas as a second brother.
• Master of Unlocking: Implied to have learned from his past hometown.
• Missing Mom: His mom died of disease when he was younger.
• Momma's Boy: Jonas expresses some very deep affection for his mother.
• Never My Fault: Zigzagged. Halfway through the game, he becomes angry at Ren for getting high and causing all the trouble in the first place, despite the fact that Jonas was the one who went exploring the caves and leading Alex to the ghost rift and encouraging her to use the radio on it in the first place. He'll also try to act as if the ghosts escaping is nobody's fault, however, if you accuse him of being at fault, or blame yourself, he'll acknowledge his culpability.
• Only Sane Man: He's the group's rationalist throughout, though he can still get a little irritated.

Ren

Ren

Voiced by: Aaron Kuban

Alex's best friend. He's the one who organized the Edwards Island trip. He has a crush on Nona.

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• Ambiguous Disorder: He's extremely insecure about his friendship with Alex, despite that they've been best friends for years, gets high as a way of coping with anxiety, and he also mentions having a therapist at one point.
• Childhood Friends: Ren has said he and Alex have known each other since grade school.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Not the strongest example, but he definitely has his moments.
• Disney Death: At one point, Alex can find that he drowned or fell to his death. It turns out to just be the ghosts trying to intimidate Alex.
• Dogged Nice Guy: He's infatuated with Nona. They can get together in the end, depending on the player's choices.
• Extreme Doormat: Depending on how you play Alex, Ren can admit that he usually lets Alex walk all over him while just agreeing with whatever she says, though whether he's being truthful or snarky about the statement is debatable.
• Functional Addict: He spends most of the game high, but it doesn't seem to even slightly impede him.
• Keet: He talks a lot, is more effeminate than some of the girls and is very outgoing and loud.
• Middle Child Syndrome: Has an older sister named Allison and a younger sister named Ellie. He acts out a lot.
• Motor Mouth: The most talkative of the group.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Ren is actually short for "Reginald" but nobody calls him this except Clarissa.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Has known Alex since they were in grade school but shows no sign of romantic feelings to her, instead having very obvious feelings for Nona. Choosing to have Alex behave like an ass toward him can irreparably damage their friendship however… that is until the second game resets everything.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Most of the humor in the game comes from him.
• The Stoner: He has a fondness for pot brownies, which he cheerfully consumes early in the game. He also mentions a story that involved him being high on cough medicine.
• The Smart Guy: He's a walking encyclopedia of trivial knowledge relating to the island's history, market, and so on.

Nona

Nona

Voiced by: Brittani Johnson

A quiet girl who is close friends with Clarissa.

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• Beware the Quiet Ones: Should she find out that Alex offered Clarissa's body to the ghosts as a new vessel, she will loudly chew her out, barely giving her room to talk back.
• Camera Fiend: Regularly takes photos, sometimes without the participant's permission.
• Extreme Doormat: Let's Clarissa dictate a lot of her actions throughout the game, even letting her decide for her whether she can hang out with the other kids.
• Disney Death: Either her or Ren will potentially seemingly fall to their deaths, but is just intimidation from the ghosts. The real Nona will clarify later it was just a mild slip.
• Dude Magnet: A small case. Ren outright admits to being smitten with her and, if certain dialogue choices are made, Jonas will admit to having a bit of a crush on her as well.
  • Chick Magnet: Alex can also express attraction to her during the game Truth-or-Slap.
• The Generic Girl: Of all the characters, she's the one you learn the least about and interact with the least, her being The Quiet One doesn't help much either.
• Hidden Depths: She practices ballet privately whenever she skips class.
• Only Friend: Among the group, she is the closest to and most protective of Clarissa.
• Out of Focus: Most of the game is spent in the company of either Jonas, Ren, or Clarissa (in an antagonistic capacity). Opportunities to interact with Nona on her own are rare and easily missable.
• The Quiet One: Is the least talkative of the cast, though she converses more when the conflict arises.
• Renaissance Man: Aside from her ballet skills, Nona is also great at playing piano and makes mini-comics in her spare time. She was also a scout, which taught her how to start fires.

Clarissa

Clarissa

Voiced by: Avital Ash

A popular girl who hates Alex. She used to date Michael.

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• The Ace: She is very popular at school and gets good grades easily.
• Alpha Bitch: Subverted. She's popular and she treats Alex like crap, but it turns out that this is more of a personal grudge, and Clarissa is generally a fairly decent person otherwise.
• Fiery Redhead: Clarissa definitely has an attitude.
• Jerkass: Clarissa finds it funny to point out the likelihood of divorce in the new stepfamily, and probes Alex as to why her parents got divorced. It's because her boyfriend - Alex's brother Michael - is dead.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: You find out eventually that Clarissa is much nicer than she initially seems, when Nona tells her how Clarissa went out of her way to celebrate Nona's birthday despite a recent tragedy. Her dislike of Alex comes from a personal - and complicated - place.
• Mouth of Sauron: The ghosts tend to use her to converse with Alex. While the ghosts can and do possess all of the teens, they have a preference for Clarissa, most likely due to her intense anger at Alex.
• Retgone: If Alex lets the ghosts take her, then Clarissa is erased from time, leaving Alex as the only one who remembers her.

Michael

Michael

Voiced by: Anthony Lam

Alex's late brother. He was very popular.

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• The Ace: Judging from how people talk about him, he was damn near perfect.
• Back from the Dead: If Alex convinces him not to leave town in the flashbacks, he never drowns.
• Big Brother Instinct: His official bio states that he is willing to protect Alex, without smothering her.
• The Lost Lenore: Clarissa never really got over his death, and it shows in the way she interacts with the others.
• Nice Guy: Michael is so nice that apparently it was enough to have cops buy him beer.
• Post Humous Character: He died sometime before the game began, but his life clearly had a great impact on both Alex and Clarissa.

Maggie Adler

Maggie Adler

An old woman who lived in a large manor on Edwards Island for decades. She died three days prior to the start of the game.

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• Ambiguously Gay: It's unclear as to exactly how close her relationship with Anna was.
• The Atoner: She dedicated her life to containing the ghosts to make up for her role in sinking the Kanaloa and getting Anna killed.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Her and Anna's attempt to free the ghosts resulted in Anna vanishing instead.
• Posthumous Character: She died shortly before the game began, but she's actually one of the most important characters.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Both for indirectly causing the deaths of the crew members of the Kanaloa, and for trying to appease them.

Anna Shea

Anna Shea

A close friend of Maggie's who died in a tragic accident decades ago.

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• Ambiguously Gay: It's unclear as to exactly how close her relationship with Maggie was.
• And I Must Scream: Translating the Morse code messages the radio picks up in parts of the island reveals that Anna survived the accident, but she was trapped in the ghost dimension instead.

The Ghosts

The Sunken

Hello. Dear. Tell everyone. Hello.

Ghosts that Alex and Jonas unwittingly let loose on Edwards Island. They are actually the crew of USS Kanaloa, a nuclear submarine that sank near Edwards Island in 1943. Instead of dying, they were trapped in another dimension. Now they seek to possess Alex and her friends' bodies to escape their predicament.

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• And I Must Scream: The dimension they exist is outside of our universe's time. As such, they've lived the entire life span of the universe several times over.
• Friendly Enemy: They are a lot kinder to Alex in a New Game Plus. They eventually confess that most of their malice on that kind of playthrough comes because they need to stick to the script. It's because they are trying to gently persuade Alex to accept that she is trapped with them for all eternity.
• Loss of Identity: After spending eons in the alternate dimension, they've forgotten virtually everything about themselves prior to their deaths. If Alex uses what she's learned from Maggie's letters to help the ghosts remember one of their number's names, the ghosts start to regain themselves.
• Sanity Slippage: Eons of imprisonment have caused their personalities to regress to those of children.
• Tragic Monster: They were ordinary soldiers before they were trapped in another dimension and twisted into monsters.
• You Can't Fight Fate: New Game Plus reveals that the ghosts are aware that no matter what they do, Alex will either seal the ghosts away again or Maggie's safeguards will prevent the ghosts from leaving the island, but they continue to try because the rules of time require them to "stick to the script."