Firewatch was meant to spark a subgenre but its influence didn’t spread. A decade on, we ask why Roblox and Minecraft are more
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!
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.
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.
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.
One that came out more recently that I thought was decent is Don’t press the button
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.
Dear Esther was the first I played, that soundtrack is great
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.
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 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.
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.
I got to admit - I only played Firewatch briefly (~20 minutes). I just remember walking around and replying to a lady on the radio before stepping away and never jumping back in.
It seems I missed what the reactive storytelling was supposed to be about.
Its the kind of game who’s value can be gotten out of a youtube video. It was hardly the first game of that subgenre either, Gone Home comes to mind.
It’s been like 10 years, but I still feel guilty I never bought Oxenfree after watching a Lets Play. I did get the sequel.
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 think they had something great there, I very much enjoyed playing it but the ending was so awful that every time I see a game that looks similar, I do not engage with it.
Hated the ending. I thought the game was finally about to get good, then it was the end, and a bad one.
Kinda grim definitely. Rather like life.
I thought it was a clever take on why isolationism leads to theories and assumptions about everyone else. The rangers are isolated and created their own paranoia. Obviously, they couldn’t readily get more information, so it’s not their fault for being in the dark.
The only thing I specifically didn’t like about the ending was how this whole manifesto of sorts was presented. I get that it gives closure on the writer’s intended narrative, but it admits a lot of legal guilt for the antagonist.
Kind of related, but Gears of War 4 and especially 5 did the same exact thing to me. Talk about a right kick in the dick.
I feel like the theme of “The hero being disappointed with the reality of their mission” has good ways of executing that are hard-hitting rather than just dismal. Spec Ops: The Line, The Fall, Papo & Yo, and The Sexy Brutale were all great iterations of this, building up to harsh late-game revelations.
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 content with Blackfrost on the Horizon. Article seems to be missing research
I loved that game so much
Hey devs. Make games like this and I’ll pay full price for all of them.
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.
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?
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”.
What does “reactive storytelling” mean? I didn’t play Firewatch.
I guess it’s the combination of two industry gameplay types: “voice on the radio” like in Bioshock, and “branching dialogue trees” like in Mass Effect. You choose when to start a dialogue with your counterpart over the walkie-talkie after things you notice, or you can choose not to mention something.
Too bad it did not blow up, people like slop throughout the ages anyway.
