Firewatch Review (PC)

excellent
key review info
  • Game: Firewatch
  • Platform: PC
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: No
  • Reviewed on:
Firewatch is a beautiful game

At one point during the first day of Firewatch, I was moving through a canyon, thinking about the way fireworks can cause a major forest fire and I was eager to see another beer can that I could scoop up to keep the environment as pristine as possible.

The pace of the game picks up soon after, and by the end of the four-hour story, players will have experienced a wide array of emotions, linked to both the main characters and the situation that develops inside the park.

Firewatch manages to create a mix of narrative, gameplay, and style that made me want to spend time in the middle of this virtual natural park, both to take in the sights and to explore the increasing feeling of dread and otherworldliness that the game creates as summer progresses.

The game is developed by Campo Santo and can be played on the PC, the PlayStation 4 from Sony and the Xbox One from Microsoft.

Story

Firewatch asks gamers to inhabit the body and, to some extent, the mind of Henry, a man who decides to take a job as a fire lookout in a remote park somewhere in Wyoming during the final year of the '80s.

It's a spoiler to mention almost anything else about the game, and much of its quality comes from the way the narrative draws players in and keeps them engaged for four to five hours, constantly giving them something new to look forward to while playing with their emotions in interesting ways.

Main character Henry has a past, revealed in the first few minutes of Firewatch and referenced after that a few times and his dominant interact for the entire summer is with his sort of supervisor Delilah.

Firewatch talk
Firewatch talk

The conversations between the pair, which happen via radio, involved a lot of topics, but the two characters quickly discover that they share a connection and that the events happening around them are more interesting than simply looking around the forest for signs of fire.

There's a lot of tension in the game, and as the days tick forward towards the end of summer, players will constantly have more questions than answers, and Firewatch does a great job of keeping the mystery engaging until roughly the last hour.

The final reveal might leave some gamers disappointed, and the ending is both a little abrupt and vague for my liking, but the entire game is focused on the fallibility of humans and their ability to regret choices and not on offering a complex story puzzle that needs to be solved.

The writing of Firewatch is great, with plenty of perfectly believable conversations between the two main characters that reveal their complexities, their failures, their addictions and comment on the kinds of connections that humans are all too eager to create.

Campo Santo has also filled the game with details that both anchor the game into the time frame of the late '80s and show the kinds of media that have influenced the tone of the game and the way it deals with mystery and revelation.

I would have loved a little more detail towards the end of the game, but regardless of how players feel about the final reveal and the way the two main characters come out of the story, I think everyone should stick with the credits for some extra context and a bit of heartbreak. Given how important the story is to Firewatch, be warned that the video and the images attached to this review contain some spoilers.

Gameplay

Firewatch is an adventure and mystery video game that asks the player to explore the wilderness while also engaging in dialogue with an unseen supervisor.

Henry will have to undergo a series of tasks for Delilah, traveling to different parts of the virtual natural park, first to do his job and prevent any fires from appearing and then for more personal reasons.

The world of the game is very well crafted, with Campo Santo creating trails that connect the points of interest while gently guiding the player around using no more than a map and a compass, with no arrow pointing to the next objective and no details instructions on how to achieve a certain task.

There are no time pressures in Firewatch and the tasks the player always undertakes seem simple enough, which gives gamers plenty of time to admire the unique design of the world and to discover all the supply caches, which deliver their own bits of narrative.

The hills, ravines, forests and trails that gamers get to explore will become very familiar as the days of the summer pass one by one, and it's never hard to tell exactly what the player has to do to progress, except for one or two occasions in the late game where a particular environmental cue is not clear.

The gameplay of Firewatch adds to the narrative, with the simple actions available to the player taking on extra significance as the plot thickens and a general feeling of unease seems to seep into the world.

There's not a lot to do in the game, but everything feels important in its way, especially the interactions with Delilah that are powered by a simple hold, select conversation option and then release system that feels every line feel meaningful.

I wanted Firewatch to offer a few more encounters in the park, to give Henry and me more reasons to move around and to find trails and snippets of stories, like the notes that create a dialog linked to the supply caches.

Graphics and audio

Firewatch has a unique look that manages to contribute to the tone of the experience and to the quality of the story, which the entire audio created by Campo Santo is an integral part of.

The world of the Shoshone National Park offers a variety of spectacular sights, but the developers do not aim for realism, tying the look of the various days and narrative moments to the way the main character is feeling and how his relationships are evolving.

The sun shining through the trees as it heads towards the horizon is superbly realized, and for the first few days of Firewatch before the story kicked into gear, I was happy to discover the variety of places that make up the world of the game and how good each of them looks.

I was less impressed with the glimpses I had of the main character, who seems out of place, drawn in a way that suggests a cartoonist character made up of fat limbs and weird use of angles and hair.

The sound design of Firewatch is superb, with the two voice actors that play the main characters delivering some incredibly personal and believable performances, even when the player chooses lines and attitudes that seem a little out of place.

The game features understated use of environmental sounds, and music is only sparingly employed during the most important moments of the story, to underscore the answers that emerge and to suggest that what the players are seeing might or might not be the full resolution to the central mystery.


The Good

  • Story and conversations
  • Exploration mechanics
  • Unique visuals

The Bad

  • A few forced moments

Conclusion

Firewatch shows how a good combination of narrative, character interactions, exploration, and visuals can create a unique experience that keeps gamers engaged despite the limits of the actual gameplay.

The game masterfully plays with emotions, getting players to care about both the main characters and the mystery that the park throws at them, with the team at Campo Santo cleverly increasing the level of dread and paranoia permeating every exploration and every solved task.

I am sure that some players will be disappointed by the way the story wraps up and by the limited impact it really has on Henry, but I think Campo Santo wants to show that the end result is not as important as the journey each individual takes to get to it.

Firewatch shows the way video games, without creating major conflicts or over-the-top conspiracies, can elicit strong emotional responses from their audience, and it should be applauded for that even by gamers who do not appreciate the first-person adventure mechanics.

story 9
gameplay 8
concept 9
graphics 9
audio 10
multiplayer 0
final rating 9
Editor's review
excellent
 

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