Firewatch

Genre: First-Person Graphic Adventure

Players: 1

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Review:

Firewatch is a game about story, and about simple but pleasant visuals. While other games in this genre focus on puzzles, this one is largely about immersing yourself in the story and enjoying the ride.

You play as a man still reeling from marital problems, taking up a new job on a “firewatch”, a lonely outpost in the middle of a forest on the lookout for signs of forest fires to notify fire fighters. Your only connection to the outside world is a radio to your boss and fellow fire-watcher, a woman with her own checkered history.

At first coming to grips with seclusion and monotony, strange events begin to unfold that seem to point to a conspiracy, and the serene landscape begins to take on a sinister tone that leads to fear and paranoia.

Okay, let me stop you there. Despite that build-up, this isn’t a horror game. There are certainly times when things seem creepy or unsettling, but there’s no way to die or lose, and the “creepy” never tips over into “terrifying”, and has no intention to. Like I said, this is a game trying to tell a story.

And… honestly, that disappointed me a little. Given the creepy tone this game took the time to build up, I was kinda’ hoping for a turn into horror. And to be honest, when you finally discover the truth behind the game’s events, it seems far more mundane than anything you might have hoped for.

Still, it’s a nice ride for the most part while it lasts, although there are times when the backtracking gets really tiresome. Also, I warn Switch users that the game has a nasty freezing bug about halfway through. I’ll save you a lot of trouble right now – at one point, you pick up an axe, and shortly afterward, you start a conversation where the screen goes into letterbox mode. When that happens, stop moving – if you don’t, you could freeze the game at the loading screen and force yourself to redo the entire chapter of the game. I would know, I had to do it three times. Ugh.

Anyway, the game has a certain charm in part because of its serene atmosphere and simple visuals. It’s nothing that will set the world on fire (a-ha, a-ha), and if you look too close it’s really not impressive at all, but as a whole it makes for a nice aesthetic. Also, the voice acting by the game’s two leads is superb, as well it should be to support the brunt of the game’s story.

All in all, fans of the graphic adventure more interested in story than puzzles will likely find this to be a solid experience.

tl;dr – Firewatch is a first-person graphic adventure game that tells a decent story in a serene setting. It does a great job making you feel isolated, lonely, and then even a bit creeped out and paranoid, but I can’t help but feel like they could have done more with this premise.

Grade: B-

Note: This is one of the first reviews ever written on eShopperReviews, all the way back when it was just a community on another website. It was originally posted on the very first day of that community’s existence, on Saturday, June 29, 2019. My, we’ve come a long way, haven’t we!

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