Firewatch is a single-player first-person mystery set in the Wyoming wilderness.
The year is 1989. You are a man named Henry who has retreated from his messy life to work as a fire lookout in the Wyoming wilderness. Perched high atop a mountain, it’s your job to look for smoke and keep the wilder...
Firewatch is a single-player first-person mystery set in the Wyoming wilderness.
The year is 1989. You are a man named Henry who has retreated from his messy life to work as a fire lookout in the Wyoming wilderness. Perched high atop a mountain, it’s your job to look for smoke and keep the wilderness safe. An especially hot, dry summer has everyone on edge. Your supervisor Delilah is available to you at all times over a small, handheld radio—your only contact with the world you've left behind. But when something strange draws you out of your lookout tower and into the forest, you’ll explore a wild and unknown environment, facing questions and making choices that can build or destroy the only meaningful relationship you have.
A Note: Firewatch is a video game about adults having adult conversations about adult things. If you plan on playing with a younger gamer, that might be good to know going in.
A stunningly beautiful wilderness environment that expands as you explore.
A tailor-made story: the choices you make shape the narrative and build relationships.
An edge-of-your-seat mystery.
Secrets and discoveries to be made over every hill.
Living, breathing characters brought to life by Cissy Jones (The Walking Dead: Season 1) and Rich Sommer (Mad Men)
A spectacular wilderness environment by Olly Moss (Illustrator) and Jane Ng (The Cave, Brutal Legend)
A thrilling story and script by Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin (The Walking Dead: Season 1, Poker Night at the Inventory)
A stirring original soundtrack by Chris Remo (Gone Home)
Fluid first-person animation by James Benson (Ori & The Blind Forest)
Gameplay scripting and design work by Patrick Ewing (Twitter) and Nels Anderson (Mark of the Ninja)
Programming by Will Armstrong (Bioshock II), Ben Burbank (Costume Quest 2, Space Base DF-9), and Paolo Surricchio (Deadpool, Call of Duty Advanced Warfare)
My thoughts have kept getting drawn back to this game over the past week since I completed it. I didn't expect it to make such an impression. I would recommend playing this game in a single sitting on a lazy afternoon towards evening. The voice acting and soundtrack are very compelling so think about using good headphones. I don't think it has much variation across multiple playthroughs but considering how it deals with living with consequences that is not something I feel it should really offer. It's not a long game by any measure but like a powerful short story, it stays with you. The ending subverts your expectations but I found it to be more true to the themes and characters.
The problem with most narrative games is that they are extremely lacking in either narrative or game; they fail at storytelling and action. With the former, they typically have the player follow a per-determined story-line in which they have no stake and thus no involvement. These games fail in the latter by offering absolutely no challenge; even taken as glorified "walking simulators" they more often than lead the player (ever so slowly, to make up for the lack of anything else) through vacant set-pieces that ultimately all look the same.
And, in all fairness, this description would probably describe Firewatch as well. In truth, its story is as shallow as most other games and - like other "walking sims", there are no real puzzles and no real danger. Similarly, while there is some variety of biomes, in the end the entirety of the game has you hiking through a forest and there's only so much you can do to disguise that fact. The big difference between Firewatch and most of its competitors is that it is so well written as to disguise the failings of its genre.
Unfortunately, to go into detail about its story would unfairly ruin the experience for anyone who hasn't played it. Let it suffice to say, however, that it is one of the better paced stories of any game - narrative and otherwise - and features both excellent dialogue writing and voice-acting. While ultimately the game still lacks in actual threat or challenge, nonetheless the story is presented so well that I was well engaged by the sense of threat and mystery as the tale played out. The writing leads the player to invest themselves in the character, which only makes the unfolding mystery all the more captivating. While some found the denouement disappointing, I thought it an interesting capstone to an allegory about how we handle our responsibility to tragedy.
Having said this, Firewatch does suffer from one major problem that is also common to its genre: it lacks in re-playability. While it has a strong story, it does not lend itself to repetition; doing so - and knowing how the story will end - you'll find the game has lost its allure, its mystery, its magic and you are left again with a rather lusterless game where you blindly follow the breadcrumbs until you reach the end of the game. Given that you can get through the game in a two or three hours, a just argument could be made that one does not get fair value for their dollar. The developers have tried to balance this out by offering both a "play with commentary mode" and a "free roam mode" that unlock after you complete the story the first time, but those who paid full price for the game may still walk away disappointed.
Myself, though, I was quite pleased with my purchase. I got an interesting yarn well-told through some excellent voice-acting and placed in a graphically - if not too differentiated - environment. I can't imagine I'll be returning to the game anytime soon - not, at least, until I've forgotten some of the specific details and can revisit the setting afresh - but I feel my time and money were well spent. Firewatch is an excellent example of the genre that other narrative games consistently fail to achieve.
Just finished playing and left feeling very sad. It's a story about letting go, about escaping and running away from your problems, but most imprtantly, about how good it can be to enjoy someone's company while it lasts. Games like these remind me why I love gaming so much
There's not that much to do in this game, you walk a lot, sometimes on the same paths... but the story... you really feel like you are there. The characters seem credible, the story is nice, you really get captivated and want to see what is going to happen, moving from cliffhanger to cliffhanger until the ~satisfying ending. And the games deals with some serious problems, some that I actually went trough while I was playing this gem. Give it a try, it deserves it.
This game is sort of like a book you can't put down. Delilah's voice actress deserves a medal for making the story feel so real, and so does whoever wrote it. This is a walking simulator, but a darn good one.
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