A Few Words on... Firewatch

Whilst it's easy to blame Telltale's Walking Dead series for reintroducing interactive novels/point and click adventure hybrids to the market, they always delivered an interesting story. So the first release of the first season of that particular franchise as a new studio, along with impressive looking trailers, was enough to make me purchase Firewatch on day one.

Firewatch sees you play as a man called Henry who begins working at Yellowstone Park in 1989 after the fires of 1988. The story is a difficult one to discuss without getting into spoilers but in short; it's a incredibly simple story told well. There's obvious build up to the isolation the player goes through and, whilst you'll see it through to the end, it's at the end you realise how vapid everything is.

The character's are very well written and acted although this is only done through voice work so it lacks all of the limited facial expressions seen in similar situations like any Telltale game. Saying that, I enjoyed the conversations between Henry and Delilah and was happy when the game offered chances to choose which conversation option to go forth with.

Unlike similar moral choice systems, Firewatch's don't really add anything other than minor details to the overall narrative. At least with The Walking Dead, I felt like there could be, and often were major changes implemented with the choices I made (either with characters dying, visual changes or changes in personality). Here, it basically boils down to character background and some choices at the end game which don't really mean anything.

Easily Firewatch's most impressive aspect is it's visuals which are absolutely stunning. The game utilises a massive pallet of vivid colours in a modded version of the Utility engine giving a cell shaded look. There are some technical failings with the PS4 version I played, but nothing game breaking other than minor clipping and slow down between save points but otherwise, it looks incredible.

Whilst it is a very beautiful looking game with an incredible atmosphere and great characters, it's Firewatch's limited gameplay which makes the overall package suffer. If you can look past it being yet another walking simulator with minimal gameplay features (you occasionally open doors, pick up objects or have to rappel slowly down hills), zero replay value and a story that is a bit of an anti-climax, then it's definitely worth checking out.

Otherwise, Firewatch is the benchmark for a free PSN Plus title and one that would never have been released if the rental market still existed. It's a very short game (I finished it in four hours on an initial playthrough) but if you treat it as a interactive miniseries that you will never want nor need to watch again, Firewatch is a decent experience but one that doesn't justify it's price or hype.

5/10

H

@Retcon_Nation