Developer: Campo Santo
Released: February 9th, 2016
Our Score: 8.2
This game was quite a fun play for us at KRT! The story takes place in 1989 and follows a Shoshone National Forest fire lookout named Henry. The only contact you have is with your playful yet cryptic supervisor Delilah via walkie-talkie. A few weeks after taking the job, mysterious events start happening and you spend your time trying to connect the dots. If a video game could ever be called a “page turner” this is it.
Firewatch totally immerses you into the story and keeps you interested in finding more clues and piece together a seemingly conspired mystery. This was one of the most unique titles we have played and really loved the character development.
Artwork for the game was inspired by 1930’s era “New Deal” posters and when you see some of the expansive lookouts it really makes you appreciate the creativity that went into this from the developers over at Campo Santo.
One of the things we really enjoyed with this game was the dialogue system. It was your basic dialogue system but the part that was unique was that not answering in time would almost be a response in itself. Delilah might have asked a question and if you didn’t answer she would think the question was “too personal” or that you were busy. It’s something that you don’t see often with dialogue systems.
While we had a hard time finding thing’s we didn’t like about the game there were a few things that we would have liked to see done differently. The game is somewhat linear but not so much that you really even notice it. It gives you the illusion of an open world but in reality you have a specific route to take and at times it does make itself apparent, but nothing that was a major complaint. We also thought that Firewatch could have been a spectacular hit if they would have added the opportunity for some variety in the game. Whether that was some kind of skill based games within the world or simply just more objectives in the game we weren’t sure, but this was one that we just didn’t want to end!
We really enjoyed this game and think that it you’ll definitely get plenty of bang for your buck with this title. At $20 on most platform marketplaces we think this money well spent.
TL;DR
WHAT WE LIKE:
Unique
Dialogue System
Immersive Story
Character Development
WHAT NEEDED WORK:
Controls hard to adapt to
Lacks variety
GL HF!
The Game Enthusiast Team