=-= To Begin With =-=
Having not heard of the Developer of Firewatch previously, but enjoying the trailer and noting that (despite obvious prettiness) the GOG.com description notes it as having a creepy wibe: I thought I would try it.
Normally I don't care about sales hype or what the latest thing is; plus my purchasing decisions are governed by a budget; so as usual I bought this on sale, at a significant discount.
I was looking forward to having a tour of an admittedly imaginary section of the Wyoming wilderness, and perhaps dodging getting attacked by a Bear along the way.

=-= Is It Broken? =-=
To address the technical issues that lie with this product: a glance in the Forum for Firewatch will (currently) show a number of people who had issues getting it to work; and yet more who got stuck or even felt *burned* (pun intended) during the course of play. In my opinion related issues have been ironed out; but your mileage without a small collection of "Visual C++ Redistributables" installed may vary with this product. I experienced *none* of the above issues, and please note my hardware *necessitated* me running Firewatch with all of the "bells and whistles" in the "Graphics settings" turned off, with the top two of that list at "Medium". The fact that this product has been patched more than once, and fairly recently (at the time of writing) shows that the Developer does seem to give a "monkeys'" about its customers. "Nuff said".

=-= On Reflection =-=
Thankfully no Ursine creatures were harmed in the making of this (essentially) interactive "walking simulator"; nor did I have to clean my clothes after encountering one. Please note: *yes* there is *a lot* of walking; but equally *yes* there is a given set of interactions the player can carry out. The Developer clearly made a decision during the design process to limit the amount of these. I think this *is* in keeping with the "spirit" of the game, as-it-is, according to me at the time of me writing this review.
The PC (Player Character, for the uninitiated) named "Henry" *is* escaping from Real Life to work in the Wyoming "Firewatch"; and after 10 and a half hours walking in Hank's sturdy boots he is still likeable (enough), and is played by a member of the cast of TV's "Mad Men" (I thought I recognised the voice!).
Having decidedly borderline "hardware" to run this game on (I'm currently running a GeForce GT 610 graphics card by an Intel Core 2 Duo processor - one very "bottom rung" and the other very old) I thought I would miss out on some of the experience: I think not. Bear in mind that on a previous operating system with hardware as old: I've managed to get "Saints Row III" and "ArmA 3" running, so I like to think I know what I'm doing, in that regard.
The atmosphere of Firewatch is indeed, at moments, downright creepy; and while I'm not "into" horror movies I did get a feeling that someone was "watching me" during the course of the game...
The cast of voice-actors are well-chosen; while the setting changed as the game progressed I still felt immersed; though I think the product is "too short" (i.e "completed" too quickly).

=-= What's Next? =-=
I look forward to playing more of this title, but so far only in its version of "Free Roam" / "Sandbox" mode; and eventually I will probably want to find out if I *can* collect books 6 and 7 of a set that's featured in the game, to satisfy my own curiosity about a secret "achievement" that may not exist...
However: I currently don't see the point revisiting this to see it under "run" on better hardware; the more avid (read: "hardcore") *gamers* out there may think differently. In my opinion: it depends how strongly you feel about dappling "Sunlight", "realistic" flowing water and "smoke effects".
I think there is definitely room for a direct sequel; even if something with a plot in the mould of a "1 year later" vibe. DLC for this I think would definitely be flogging the proverbial dead Equine (please note: no Equines, injured or otherwise, are viewed or visited during the course of the game; although Horses do come up in discussion there, once, that I know of). I don't know if modifications to the code that could / would "stretch" the available storyline / plotpoints (to play through) are possible. Oh well!

If you enjoyed (or hated) this post: please give it a vote. A portion of this text can be seen in the "User reviews" section of the Firewatch page in the GOG.com "Store".

Thanks for this review. I concur with most of it. Having played this after SOMA, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and Conarium, I think it does enqueue itself very well in this line of great narrative-driven games.

In contrast to you, I played Firewatch on my new medium-ranged gaming PC that I bought in January (just before any decent graphics cards got unavailable or unaffordable), and thus, I enjoyed all of its beauty in maximum FPS.

One delightful detail that many 1st-person games lack even to this day was that in Firewatch, you can see your own body! As natural this should be, it was a nice, salient feature that made the game even more immersive.

As always with these outstanding "walk-in novels", after finishing Firewatch I am torn between the delightful feeling of the past experience and the loss of another forthcoming one to look forward to ...

Fair enough; "vielen dank" for responding! I haven't played Dear Esther yet, but I think it's one of my "libraries". Another one for the list? Yes! I forgot that! It is true that the precedent has been set for some time that this "isn't important" but seeing the Player Character's feet as you climb down a ravine (etc.) really adds to the immersion. I'm told it is a design choice, rather than a technical one, of the Developer. to include these textures in any game. IMHO even games like the Far Cry series, or a more somber "Shooter" like Dead By Daylight (I think that's the title) would benefit.

Edit:
There's one Shooter that purposely uses a falsely pixelated set of textures to create a pseudo-Minecraft look to the game, but it appears to be a very fast, very tense game; complete with ammo scarcity, "jump scares" and even some platforming.
Sadly: I cannot remember the name of this either; the word "Rust" comes to mind, but I don't know if this is correct.
Anyway. Even in this product: if you find 3 blue flowers during the course of your playthrough; and insert them into an open flame of some kind, the resulting smoke knocks out your Player Character, and you wake up in a secret level where the only objective pushes you through a "walking simulator" of some kind!
I can see "completionists" being divided over the quality of code like that. This is part of the reason I "stockpile" product keys and applications that I can install later, perhaps years later! You may have noticed: I'm not enamored by trends!
The (current) issues I have with a lack of modern hardware mean I'm locked out of the Spintires games (i.e. Spintires, the "spin-off" Mud Runner, and the sequel to that which is Snow Runner) but currently I'm playing instead the first Deus Ex and Prison Architect; so I'm not missing out.

Gern geschehen. :) Well, yes and no. It was actually the first "walking simulator" I ever played, and it was a nice (if very melancholic) experience. But it doesn't compare very well to the aforementioned games, since its very short and has no interaction at all besides walking and triggering different voiced puzzle pieces of the story.

In retrospective, it feels more like a demo than an full-fledged game. That's my approach, too. My GOG library just crossed the 500 mark lately, and thanks to drm-freedom, I store all of them locally, so I don't even have to download them when I chose the next one to try. That's what drove me to finally buy a new PC this year after over ten years. Too many promising games stockpiled on my hard drive that were too demanding for my old rig. Playing mostly indie and older games lentghens the perfidious upgrade cycle, but eventually becomes inevitable after all. :)

edit: I'm currently playing QUERN, which is more situated in the "Myst" genre. I (think I) am near its end and had a very good time playing it. It's not too easy, but most puzzles can be solved by patience, logic and thorough observation. I only had to refer to online guides three times, and two of them it really was my lack of perseverance.

I didn't know Dear Esther was short; oh well... Perhaps that one will be good for "a rainy day"! Wow! I divide my Library into sub-lists, but that's impressive! Urgh. Don't remind me. I think I'm going to try PopOS or similar; see if I can get some more time out of my best graphics card and update from Windows 7 to something that won't complain it's not "Registered". At least the update system advertises what's doing before it does it... I very much note this! QUERN I had not heard of; Myst (etc.) is something (else) that I need to get into. Thanks for the tip!
I think there's been a collection of teh Myst games on sale recently! Hmm...

edit: I suggest Machinarium for something full of puzzles, but a lot more "cute", it's kind of top-down, kind of isometric; but more like a platformer like Braid. Even the Hint Book (that can come bundled with it) is well designed.

I finished Quern yesterday after a pause of two months at approx. 95% of the game (i.e. two complex puzzles away from the end). My positive verdict above still stands. I can recommend this game for any Myst fan and/or those who like logical puzzles that you can solve with enough patience, thought, and observation. On top of that, Quern is very beautiful, and its fully narrated story, while not extraordinary or that surprising, is interesting to follow and connects the other parts of the game very well.

Now, I have to find another narrative first-person game to get lost in over the dark season.