Firewatch was meant to spark a subgenre but its influence didn’t spread. A decade on, we ask why Roblox and Minecraft are more
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.
“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.
Firewatch was okay. I waited for it to get good, and it just didn’t.
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
Because it’s boring. Lmao
Playing my 2nd playthrough of the Witcher 3. First playthrough was in 2016. Forgot alot of details about it, but this game… It feels like playing it for the first time again. Sure I know some contracts and monsters before finding them, but they’ve not stopped updating this game since 2016
My first version I played was v1.3
It’s now v4.0+
That’s insane! And the game is so full of incredible world building and dialogue and action it’s just incredible. They added FSR support for those that care. Updated graphics, fixed many bugs and packed even more content into it
How dit CDPR make this. They do show that a game can stay good for a long time, even arguably past it’s expiration date. Not saying it’s expired it’s just 10yrs old…
That said, fire watch was beautiful but it really had a linear kind of feel to it. It was almost scary at moments. Very peaceful at others. But it was more of a demo of what a great story game could be than an actual game. There was absolutely no incentive to replay it after one playthrough. Not even after many years. I still don’t think I’ll ever touch it again. It had no gripping ending or mystery except for not meeting the lady in the other tower.
If they would’ve made a game like this but with that Reddit creepypasta story of a park ranger that found stairs in the woods that teleported people… That would be interesting.
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.
JAAAASON
Too bad it did not blow up, people like slop throughout the ages anyway.
Huh new subgenre? I always considered it already part of the well-established genre of narrative driven walking simulators.
Yeah I don’t know that Firewatch was a significant divergence from the rest of the walking sim genre, let alone establishing is own subgenre. But it is weird that there did seem to be a bubble of these sorts of experiential/narrative walking sim games for a minute. Some of them pretty popular. Firewatch, Gone Home, The Stanley Parable, etc. Maybe 10ish notable titles all within the few years between 2013-2017. Then nothing significant for nearly a decade now. But thank God we’ve had 40 more online battle Royale shooters since then!
Radiolight came out last fall and looks good! But I agree in general that there aren’t as many or frequent releases of them as during that boom.
Gone home was great, another good one was Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture.
The Long Dark feels similar in style, though it has a lot more game elements to it.
Now if only they’d finish the actual fucking game instead of tweaking the multiplayer no-one asked for, releasing a full six part DLC or developing and getting a significant way through finishing a full sequel.
Not salty about that one at all, nope.
Recently tried to start a new run of The Long Dark. But holy shit, the whole survival mechanic is so bothersome. Even on easy or medium setting you can’t walk 500m without your character literally starting to tumble from hunger or exhaustion.
If I ate what my character in the long dark eats, I would be rolling through the snowy forest, yet he is constantly on the verge of starving to death. 2 entire rabbits for breakfast? 2h later and he acts like he hasn’t eaten in weeks… Same for water, energy or warmth.
I agree it’s a bit stark but it does ease up once you get used to the hunting and gathering mechanics, not by much though.
I think the in game reasoning is that the cold your experiencing is already coldest canada, but has an element of extra ice age cold.
Coldness increases calorie consumption due to the heating requirements i think , but i can’t say I’ve been anywhere cold enough to say if it’s accurate or not in the game.
I friggin loved Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture! It was like listening to those dramas on british radio, but set at your own pace. And it had the most excellent 80s UK vibe.
Is it really still not finished? My god.
I picked it up in early access for nothing and honestly never got round to going back to it after all these years. I really enjoyed the hour or so I spent messing about and then life got in the way.
I really enjoyed the first two chapters, it’s up in my top 50.
To be honest I’ve only made it to the beginning of the third chapter but that’s mainly because i didn’t want to get further into something that wasn’t complete yet.
Which was more prescient than i imagined because it was 6 years ago.
One that came out more recently that I thought was decent is Don’t press the button
Hmm, i slept on that one because i got it mistaken with Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes which is multiplayer and therefore not my usual jam.
I’ll give it a look.
I mean, it’s multiplayer, sure, but it’s a different sort of multiplayer than most. I freaking love disarming the bomb.
I’m sort of disappointed to hear about the long dark though. I’ve had that one on my backlog for when I finish the current survival crafting game I’m working through.
Honestly it’s still an excellent game, I’m just salty about the nearly 8 year delay.
As it so happens i checked on it and the release date for the last part is apparently the end of march 2026.
I’m not holding my breath, but if it comes out on time, that’ll be a nice bonus.
Dear Esther was the first I played, that soundtrack is great
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.
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.
That’s a great way to put it. The game’s ‘feeling’ wasn’t managed well, I think. They did some great atmospheric tricks, with some good tension by using the very fact that you’re playing a game to lead you down a particular thought pattern. I even thought it was a good ending that fit everything, but it just felt like that switch in tone you describe wasn’t really done in a way that was pleasant to experience.
I had this dilemma with Danganronpa 3.
The first case is very well structured. It transparently sets up a very easy-to-miss stinging motive for the act that happens. It distracts you in the trial, and whams you with it in a perfect way. Everything makes sense; I remember feeling impressed by the twist they pulled off.
But then, due to the outcome, I honestly had little interest in finishing the game. It was a “fitting” twist, accurate to the characters as they’d defined them, but it wasn’t a satisfying one.
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.
edit: on a reread, the two opinions aren’t exclusive, both can be held. and I do agree with you, it’s a bit of a “…that’s it?” moment. in my haste to form a reply on the internet for validation I read a little bit deeper into your comment then you actually wrote. I like how you worded it. and there is a commonly held opinion that is more opinionated than yours, which I thought you leaned a little more towards than your comment actually does
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.
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.
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.
Yeah, fuck artists who come up with a specific thing they want to show people, why can’t they make another playground where they have to guess everything players might want to do and develop all of it. And write, code, animate, voice all the physics and choices.
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?
I enjoyed the game quite a bit. It told a weird story that i enjoyed, in a small game world that i enjoyed being in. It could have been better in many ways, but id go so far as to say i loved it. As a game to just chill and play, without needing to be on your guard all the time, it was relaxing and entertaining. It was like reading a good book, you wanted to see what happened next.
Im not sure that id want for this style of gaming to be the next big thing, but I would have liked to have seen that style built on. Its a shame Campo Santo disappeared into Valve… I had hoped that Valley of the Gods would still see the light of day, but he says thats unlikely. Its a shame that Valve devours great game makers, then they never make games.
I loved that game so much
Hey devs. Make games like this and I’ll pay full price for all of them.
