Firewatch is a first person adventure set in 1989 where the player takes the role of a fire lookout in the Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming. The game starts off in an incredibly strong fashion, setting up a narrative that is very emotionally gripping in just a few text lines - the wife of the main character, Julia, has early-onset dementia and this has taken a massive toll in their relationship. Henry, the main character, eventually comes to Shoshone, in a way, to escape from his marriage's issues after not being able to take care of Julia anymore.
When arriving to the park, he meets a woman - Delilah - with whom we speak for the entire game via a small, pocket radio, but never see. Delilah is our only company for the vast majority of the game. Throughout the game, the relationship between Delilah and Henry is developed as Henry takes on small tasks and hikes around Shoshone accompanied by a beautiful soundtrack and some gorgeous views - I took a lot of screenshots.
The game jitters a bit and has quite a bit of frame drops which should not happen since the game isn't technically impressive at all, even if very beautiful, and while that signals a bit of lack of polish, it was not a deal breaker for me. As the game progresses, the voice lines exchanged between Delilah and Henry are an absolute delight, and I often found myself walking around in-game just DESESPERATE for them to start talking again (that's how enjoyable they were). But soon enough the focus stops being on the inner troubles of the characters and starts being on some strange occurrencies happening in the park.
I will admit, the game had me on the edge of my seat for the majority of the time, and I was so focused and immersed that I was jumpscared twice with things that weren't that scary (LOL) but after the mystery unrolled I missed the more introspective, contemplative voice lines of the beginning of the game. The ending felt a bit rushed and not even seeing Delilah at the end honestly felt a little bit more like they didn't want to make a 3D model for her than anything else, it was really underwhelming. In spite of this, I never felt like the quality of the dialogue dropped, just that the focus of it changed and some plot lines were left unopened or were closed too quickly contrasting with the early game's more slow and calculated pace (for example, the teen's disappearing outcome is revealed to us in a single interaction from Delilah).
All in all, Firewatch is quite an experience, with an extremely strong visual identity (ranging from the beautiful designed posters to the varying canyon landscapes), solid soundtrack, brilliant voice acting and a very unique premise. But its execution ranges from brilliant to okay, it's technically a little rough around the corners, and the ending could've been more worked on. For a game with such a strong focus on escapism, with Henry running away from his wife's illness, Delilah avoiding her broken relationship, Ned trying to stay away from the consequences of his sins, and perhaps you, the player, trying to escape from reality while playing the videogame, Firewatch unfortunately feels like it's avoiding itself in its last legs.
When arriving to the park, he meets a woman - Delilah - with whom we speak for the entire game via a small, pocket radio, but never see. Delilah is our only company for the vast majority of the game. Throughout the game, the relationship between Delilah and Henry is developed as Henry takes on small tasks and hikes around Shoshone accompanied by a beautiful soundtrack and some gorgeous views - I took a lot of screenshots.
The game jitters a bit and has quite a bit of frame drops which should not happen since the game isn't technically impressive at all, even if very beautiful, and while that signals a bit of lack of polish, it was not a deal breaker for me. As the game progresses, the voice lines exchanged between Delilah and Henry are an absolute delight, and I often found myself walking around in-game just DESESPERATE for them to start talking again (that's how enjoyable they were). But soon enough the focus stops being on the inner troubles of the characters and starts being on some strange occurrencies happening in the park.
I will admit, the game had me on the edge of my seat for the majority of the time, and I was so focused and immersed that I was jumpscared twice with things that weren't that scary (LOL) but after the mystery unrolled I missed the more introspective, contemplative voice lines of the beginning of the game. The ending felt a bit rushed and not even seeing Delilah at the end honestly felt a little bit more like they didn't want to make a 3D model for her than anything else, it was really underwhelming. In spite of this, I never felt like the quality of the dialogue dropped, just that the focus of it changed and some plot lines were left unopened or were closed too quickly contrasting with the early game's more slow and calculated pace (for example, the teen's disappearing outcome is revealed to us in a single interaction from Delilah).
All in all, Firewatch is quite an experience, with an extremely strong visual identity (ranging from the beautiful designed posters to the varying canyon landscapes), solid soundtrack, brilliant voice acting and a very unique premise. But its execution ranges from brilliant to okay, it's technically a little rough around the corners, and the ending could've been more worked on. For a game with such a strong focus on escapism, with Henry running away from his wife's illness, Delilah avoiding her broken relationship, Ned trying to stay away from the consequences of his sins, and perhaps you, the player, trying to escape from reality while playing the videogame, Firewatch unfortunately feels like it's avoiding itself in its last legs.