Firewatch was meant to spark a subgenre but its influence didn’t spread. A decade on, we ask why Roblox and Minecraft are more
I couldn’t finish it.
This is certainly on me, but I just couldn’t handle the story. Without too many spoilers, the game’s story includes a tragic death, and when I played the game I was actively dealing with a recent death in the family and when I got to that part of the story… I just couldn’t go any further.
And while this is a special case, it’s also typical for how I play games, I play to escape the emotional social dilemmas of my life. Give me a strategy game, a puzzle game, a factory game. Give me some abstract puzzle to solve, a system to optimize, an army to outmaneuver; the last thing I want is a deep story with complex characters. Emotions just add weight to the experience, and my whole objective is to try to shrug off some of that weight for a while.
I agree. I’d rather watch a show or a movie with my better half for the plot. I play games for the game part. I don’t need or even want my stories to be interactive.
But people are different
Odd, Firewatch was entirely forgettable for me — I don’t think I agree that it should have sparked a subgenre.
Should it be influential? Yes, I think the only thing they did a very good job with was the dialogue. Am I surprised there aren’t ‘Firewatch-likes’? No.
See, that’s what’s weird to me. I thought the dialogue was terrible, but the voice actors were doing their best (and were good). Sort of the same thing as the dialogue in star wars 2&3 making hayden seem like a terrible actor, when he was quite good if given a better script.
Valve bought Campo Santo and Valley of the Gods got put on Valve Time.
They don’t make games like this because the people got put into other projects.
The Long Dark is finishing up their episodic context with Blackfrost on the Horizon. Article seems to be missing research
Firewatch was okay. I waited for it to get good, and it just didn’t.
I loved that game so much
Hey devs. Make games like this and I’ll pay full price for all of them.
I know the term walking simulator is used as a bit of a pejorative but firewatch and was very interesting experience. But it was just a walking simulator and there is a limit to how much you can do with that.
If you have a compelling story you want to tell there are better mediums than video games through which to tell that story unless you have some kind of unique thing you want to do that makes interactive media more appropriate.
I can’t imagine for the sake of example that Game Of Thrones would have had anywhere near the cultural impact it did if it had been released as a video game.
I really liked the first 80% of Firewatch. The last 20% though… I guess I didn’t hate it, but I also really didn’t like the switch in tone. Without giving spoilers, the ending left me feeling kind of disappointed with how normal it was. I remember finishing the game and immediately going to look if there was an alternative ending, because certainly the game wouldn’t just end like… That.
Like, imagine working on a big murder mystery where a man was found dead inside a locked room with no windows. You gather tons of clues, interview countless people searching for a motive, spend a lot of time putting together all the pieces and… It turns out he simply tripped and hit his head.
Like, there’s still a mystery. There’s still a good story. It’s not even a really bad ending, it’s just not nearly as exciting as where you thought it would lead.
I see this opinion quite a bit. I also see the opinion that I’m about to give you quite a bit.
I think the ending was fitting. Life goes on, not everything has a spectacular ending. Yet we go on.
I think I related to the game quite well because I finally played it after ending a long-term relationship. I think it actually helped me process some stuff - not that I couldn’t without it, but it maybe helped bring it out into the open.
Yeah, I actually think from a narrative perspective it’s very fitting, maybe anticlimactic, but fitting.
You have this guy trying to get away from the realities of life, he wants things to be more than what they are, but in the end that just isn’t the case. It’s melancholic, but also cathartic in a way.
The ending is perhaps wrapped up a little too perfectly. You look at something like Twin Peaks and you know who did it, but it ends in whatever the opposite of wrapped up perfectly is and people talk about it for decades.
“fighting the medium” is an excellent phrase! Never played Firewatch, though I have made some stumbling attempts at creative writing, and it’s made me realize that certain things are very difficult to convey organically in words. How do you get across to a first time reader that an alien isn’t actually shrugging or winking or pointing with an index finger, but expressing the same thing through non human body language? And then how do you do it over and over and over again, because when posting stories to a forum you have to assume this is everyone’s first time reading.
In a visual medium like a webcomic, it’s super simple to convey it through a combo of dialogue and visuals. Even the nature of the story itself has to fit the medium. With a comic, people expect short self-contained scenes or character interactions that may or may not connect to form a story arc. This is what I like to write about, little snippets that serve to build the world, just a few lines of dialogue or a paragraph describing a scene, but that’s not what people expect from prose. They want meatier stuff.
Makes me wonder what would be impossible to express altogether in one medium vs another.
It was just a regular walking sim. Didn’t really do a lot that other walking sims didn’t.
If your game doesn’t feature shooting, platforming or sportsball, then you’re already off the mainstream slop, and you’re going to have to accept that you’re going to make less money by targeting niche audiences.
FWIW, I liked it. But I can see why a lot of people wouldn’t be interested. You’re dealing with a world where people’s “game collections” are just 6 yearly iterations of CoD and FIFA.
Firewatch has certain choose your own adventure style “What is thy name, adventurer?” questions that it will refer back to later but it doesn’t effect the actual game that much. You get slightly different dialog lines from Horny Boss Chick On The Radio. What did it do that Roger Wilco couldn’t?
Firewatch was such an awesome game, bit short though.
I feel like it was the right length so as not to overstay its welcome. It’s a nice narrative experience, with a unique dialogue, but had it kept going I think I would have grown tired of it
I also wanted more, but I think you are right, it’s paced exactly right for what it is.
Sometimes less is more.
Would’ve got more, but Campo Santo was bought and basically immediately scraped. So no Firewatch 2 for you.
I love games like this. I replay Firewatch probably once a year. Walking simulator is such a dismissive genre name, but these games tend to be short and emotionally rich. What Remains of Edith Finch is one of my other favorites.
I wish there were 1000 more to play. Yes, I enjoy sinking hundreds of hours into Satisfactory or Dark Souls, but sometimes I want to feel things and that is what these games deliver.
I really like Quantic Dream’s games. A little bit of action sprinkled in to a narrative-driven walking sim where your choices can impact the game really gets you emotionally connected. Their use of facial mocap really takes the immersion to the next level too.
I highly recommend all of Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, and Detroit: Become Human if that’s the sort of games you enjoy.
Too bad it did not blow up, people like slop throughout the ages anyway.
People are determined to be unhappy aren’t they. It’s not slop it’s just not for you and that’s fine but it doesn’t mean you get to be dismissive of other media. There’s plenty of great games that are neither slop nor firewatch style narrative games.
Win over the hearts of academics in arts and literature and you’ll be off
I half joke, but academia loves to act like elitist snobs that know better than the dirty, uncouth peasants and their silly, simple means of entertainment. Only games (board, rpg, video) can offer experiences where player (“consumer”) choice matters and leads to different outcomes. Books, movies, series are all “set in stone”.
Yeah, video games are still seen as low brow entertainment, not worthy of being accepted as sophisticated high culture.
Because it’s boring. Lmao
