Personal review about Firewatch (PS4).
Intro
I’ll have to start off with this small disclosure, I normally don’t really buy indies, because simply, they’re never on sale on disc. And that’s what I want to elaborate a bit here, next to gamer I’m also a huge collector. Or, next to collector I’m also a gamer, not that sure yet which side I’m on. But, for me personally, my “fetish” is boxed games & consoles. I’ll never buy digital, because then there is absolutely no end at all in my collection. I already have time issues playing all my games, so when I can, I focus on games which have a physical release.
So, with that knowledge, I knew I’d probably never play Firewatch. Even though the raving reviews were exciting. But then, a company called Limited Run Games, freefighters of the cause “Games on a disc!”, decided to team up with Compo Santo and make a physical release. Like every week or 2 weeks, I sat down at 3:59 PM with my credit card in my hand, anxiously waiting for the website to release the 7300 copies into the wild. Gladly I was able to snatch one, so I had to wait till it was shipped from America.
After a couple it weeks it finally arrived, packaging & cover art is absolutely stunning. And I couldn’t wait to play it.
First impression
Knowing the game was quite short (I finished it in around 3 hours worth of gameplay), I finally found the time to play it this weekend (5th of February). And oh boy, was I in for a treat. As a coder myself - and with a healthy interest in Unity Game development - I knew this came from a “small” indie game studio, and that it was made in Unity. With the success they gathered last year, and everything I read about it, I knew it had to be good. So I just dipped right in.
It starts of with a small text based story, where you’re in the driving seat. You can make simple decisions to change the outcome of the intro, and then reality hits you hard when you realise this isn’t a “Funsy & giggles” game.
It has quite a darker background story, but I don’t want to spoil too much, so I’ll leave that to you guys.
The story
After the whole shebang, you know your character is named Henry, and you retreated back into the forest where your task is looking for smoke & keeping the wildlife safe. Armed with nothing more than a walkie talkie & a supervisor called Delilah, your mission starts to keep your mind of your real “real life”.
The main game itself starts quite slow with scolding some drunk teenagers who are skinny dipping while you’re figuring out how to navigate the forest & learn the controls. But don’t be suprised, since it is quite the short story-line, it progresses fast. And it gets quite… scary.
You really feel submerged in the forest, you’re actually hiking through the narrow paths finding your way from 1 campfire to supply caches & rapelling steep hills. Even though it is a “walking simulator”, the time you spend talking to Delilah while hiking - Which you’ll do a lot - actually makes time go faster, forgetting about your characters problems. After forming a tight bond with Delilah while choosing your own answers in the conversation, you find yourself stuck in a conspiracy theory feeling, and the game keeps tricking you into backtracking your every movement because of that.
The story gets dark, you actually feel hunted while you’re using your flashlight to find your way back to your guard tower in pitch dark, when you find out even that isn’t safe.
I finished the game in 1 run because I actually felt intrigued, I wanted to keep playing, know what was going to happen. And that’s one of the best things a game can do. It shouldn’t feel like a drag to finish the game. And I absolutely loved how they nailed that in this game. They looked after so much small details, with such little budget in quite a large environment.
The ending is a bit anti climactic, and you feel left behind with an empty stomach, but after reading on the internet what other people thought of the entire game I felt better. Apparently I wasn’t the only one pondering on what could be the explanation for several twists in the story, and I think they gained a large community and props to the creators for making a great game. If you have people discussing such things about your game, you know you’ve done it well. Reading all these forums made me feel better about the ending, because it leaves so much holes open in the story. And ‘till now I’m still thinking of what could’ve been and what happened in perticular missions.
Technical point of view
Even though it is an indie, there are some remarks I have. I understand - as a coder myself - it isn’t easy. But they dropped some balls in this game. I adore all the details they put into this game, a lot of extra animations that normal games wouldn’t do. But that shows in other parts. For example, you notice there are “triggers” in the game which will make the game start loading different area’s which you can’t see yet. But that’s something you actually notice a lot as a user. You get mini-freezes after every couple 100 meters, but it wasn’t a showstopper for me. But still, that’s something that should’ve been smoothed out. Next to that, you actually see a lot of the environment rendering while walking, you see actual grass rendering on screen, it has a small perimeter around the character which is highly detailed, but 20 meters further is mostly just missing. So you see props of grass popping up on the fly. All these little details make you feel the difference between a indie studio & a professional studio.
The verdict
It is absolutely a nobrainer, you SHOULD play this, even though you’re not into walking simulators like me. Firewatch has its small flaws, but totally forgivable for this price & emotional roller coaster.
T.