Firewatch launching on February 9, 2016 [PS4 | PC]

Honestly, after how The Witness turned out I'd be happy to drop another £30 on this game. I'm so grateful for all these great-looking indies on console.
 
Not sure if it was mentioned, but their official Twitter says all launch information will be revealed today. I'm in, but just waiting on the price.
 
What do you guys think this will be priced as considering it will probably take around 4-5 hours to complete it, from what I read so far.

My best bet will probably be 20$

Anything higher will probably ensue another shitstorm.
 
Ethan Carter and Rapture were both $20, and this game seems comparable to them in all aspects.
I doubt they will ask for more than that.
 
What do you guys think this will be priced as considering it will probably take around 4-5 hours to complete it, from what I read so far.

My best bet will probably be 20$

Anything higher will probably ensue another shitstorm.

I've read 6-7 hours for main story line.

You can go off the beaten path and do other stuff which will hopefully extend play for most beyond those hours.

Like I said a week back I expect £25/$30 considering the games visuals, voice talent and design.
 
Really looking forward to this one. Hopefully it has some puzzle solving.

Anyone know what type of gameplay this has? I'm assuming it's not really an action game.
 
Really looking forward to this one. Hopefully it has some puzzle solving.

Anyone know what type of gameplay this has? I'm assuming it's not really an action game.

Exploration, light puzzle solving and dialogue response options.

I look at it as a Telltale games/Everybody's Gone to the Rapture hybrid.
 
Heard on the PlayStation Blogcast that there will be a dynamic Firewatch PS4 theme by Ollie Moss. I bet it's beautiful. The time of day supposedly changes to reflect your real clock.
 
My best bet will probably be 20$

Anything higher will probably ensue another shitstorm.

I'm hoping Indie devs continue to brave "shitstorms" and charge how much they feel their games are worth. The game clearly has high production values (Olly Moss as Art Director!) so I don't mind paying £25-40 for a 4-5 hour experience.

Heard on the PlayStation Blogcast that there will be a dynamic Firewatch PS4 theme by Ollie Moss. I bet it's beautiful. The time of day supposedly changes to reflect your real clock.

I really hope this happens.
 
I'm hoping the game is closer to $20, or maybe under, just because these next few months are so packed with releases I'm interested in. And Unravel comes out the same day.

Also the game only has
4 achievements / trophies, all automatically earned through story progression, no platinum obviously,
(trophy count/info not sure if I should spoiler tag that or not) and while that's not an indication of the price of the game, nor should it be, I haven't seen a lot of $30 and up games that have similar looking trophy lists.

Either way I can't wait to play this, and I hope that dynamic theme is really happening because it sounds awesome.
 
Should give you a good idea.

Very light on spoilers too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz4N41jiN-A
God damn it. Watched the gameplay footage and immediately noticed the frame-rate jumping all over the place from 30 to 60. That worries me so I type "Firewatch + Unity" into Google and, sure enough, it's running on Unity. :\

I don't get it. Clearly your game cannot run at 60fps on the PS4. CAP IT at 30fps, for the love of all things.

The games on PS4 with the most serious performance problems (or at least super unstable frame-rates) are almost entirely Unity games.

The Last Tinker
Oddworld New n' Tasty
Roundabout (super jittery)
Never Alone
Toren
Galak-Z
Grow Home
...and many more

There are at least a small handful of smooth Unity games on PS4 such as Counterspy, but holy hell are they uncommon. Even on the PC, many of these games suffer from performance issues. Really disappointing. Now it seems like Firewatch, which looks better than some of those examples, is going to run at an inconsistent frame-rate.
 
God damn it. Watched the gameplay footage and immediately noticed the frame-rate jumping all over the place from 30 to 60. That worries me so I type "Firewatch + Unity" into Google and, sure enough, it's running on Unity. :\

I don't get it. Clearly your game cannot run at 60fps on the PS4. CAP IT at 30fps, for the love of all things.

The games on PS4 with the most serious performance problems (or at least super unstable frame-rates) are almost entirely Unity games.

The Last Tinker
Oddworld New n' Tasty
Roundabout (super jittery)
Never Alone
Toren
Galak-Z
Grow Home
...and many more

There are at least a small handful of smooth Unity games on PS4 such as Counterspy, but holy hell are they uncommon. Even on the PC, many of these games suffer from performance issues. Really disappointing. Now it seems like Firewatch, which looks better than some of those examples, is going to run at an inconsistent frame-rate.

You give great examples of poorly running Unity games but maybe you're sticking in the knife early?

Could have been an old build from Campo Santo.

I saw another interview where the lead dev Sean said a lot of polish was taking up a good deal at the end of production.

Hope the frame issues have been ironed out anyways.
 
You give great examples of poorly running Unity games but maybe you're sticking in the knife early?

Could have been an old build from Campo Santo.

I saw another interview where the lead dev Sean said a lot of polish was taking up a good deal at the end of production.

Hope the frame issues have been ironed out anyways.
Yeah, you're right. I certainly won't pass judgement until it's released. I'm just concerned as Unity games have a pretty lousy track record on consoles.
 
Did Campo Santo give any indication of what time they'd announce stuff today? I have a busy day at work and won't be able to check GAF often. If not I'll find out after work! Very excited for the game.
 
Did Campo Santo give any indication of what time they'd announce stuff today? I have a busy day at work and won't be able to check GAF often. If not I'll find out after work! Very excited for the game.

Don't think so, Campo Santo twitter just says they will share all the launch details sometime today.
 
Yeah, you're right. I certainly won't pass judgement until it's released. I'm just concerned as Unity games have a pretty lousy track record on consoles.

I know this is off topic but why do many Unity games run so poorly on consoles?

Is that engine built only with mobile in mind or something?
I've only really played Grow Home on that list you provided but that was for a short time and I don't remember severe framerate issues.
 
Did Campo Santo give any indication of what time they'd announce stuff today? I have a busy day at work and won't be able to check GAF often. If not I'll find out after work! Very excited for the game.
Based in San Fran so not earlier then 9 AM PST that is 18:00 CET.

But it will be a little later then that.

Heard on the PlayStation Blogcast that there will be a dynamic Firewatch PS4 theme by Ollie Moss. I bet it's beautiful. The time of day supposedly changes to reflect your real clock.
Please have that be available world wide! :O
 
I know this is off topic but why do many Unity games run so poorly on consoles?

Is that engine built only with mobile in mind or something?
I've only really played Grow Home on that list you provided but that was for a short time and I don't remember severe framerate issues.
Well, having made a small game myself in Unity, it's very easy to work in and you can do a lot without "getting your hands dirty", so to speak. There have always been garbage collection issues and plenty of annoying bottlenecks to deal with but some of the issues are beyond me. Like, if your game is running at such a variable frame-rate, why would you leave it uncapped?

Grow Home was indeed terrible on PS4. It runs very very poorly. It shipped with severe tearing problems, which have been fixed, but performance remains unstable. Unfortunately, it does not run well on the PC either. It's not that it's demanding, rather, there is something inherently jerky about the way the game moves. Something that has happened often in Unity games.

There are a number of games, like Jazzpunk or Kairo, that run at 60fps without an issue...but player movement isn't interpolated properly which results in a constant stutter while moving. It just looks AWFUL in action and I don't understand why developers are allowing it to happen. Nearly every single time I run into such an issue the game in question generally turns out to have been made in Unity. After years of this, I've kind of grown to dislike Unity as an engine.
 
Heard on the PlayStation Blogcast that there will be a dynamic Firewatch PS4 theme by Ollie Moss. I bet it's beautiful. The time of day supposedly changes to reflect your real clock.

Fantastic, I can't wait for this. I'm a sucker for a decent dynamic theme - I went to the efforts of pre-ordering Mirror's Edge off the US Store just to get the dynamic theme.
 
Well, having made a small game myself in Unity, it's very easy to work in and you can do a lot without "getting your hands dirty", so to speak. There have always been garbage collection issues and plenty of annoying bottlenecks to deal with but some of the issues are beyond me. Like, if your game is running at such a variable frame-rate, why would you leave it uncapped?

Grow Home was indeed terrible on PS4. It runs very very poorly. It shipped with severe tearing problems, which have been fixed, but performance remains unstable. Unfortunately, it does not run well on the PC either. It's not that it's demanding, rather, there is something inherently jerky about the way the game moves. Something that has happened often in Unity games.

There are a number of games, like Jazzpunk or Kairo, that run at 60fps without an issue...but player movement isn't interpolated properly which results in a constant stutter while moving. It just looks AWFUL in action and I don't understand why developers are allowing it to happen. Nearly every single time I run into such an issue the game in question generally turns out to have been made in Unity. After years of this, I've kind of grown to dislike Unity as an engine.

Ahhh very interesting stuff. Pretty shocking as I remember around the console unveilings that the new version of Unity was paraded as a great engine to get games up and running faster and more efficiently.

Funnily enough, I see that Assault Android Cactus in the Vote to Play thread is also mentioned as 60fps with bad dips.

Thanks for the explanation though, I really hope Firewatch bucks the trend of poorly optimised Unity games!
 
Wow, The Witness has been preoccupying me so much that I forgot this was so soon. I can't wait.
 
Ahhh very interesting stuff. Pretty shocking as I remember around the console unveilings that the new version of Unity was paraded as a great engine to get games up and running faster and more efficiently.

Funnily enough, I see that Assault Android Cactus in the Vote to Play thread is also mentioned as 60fps with bad dips.

Thanks for the explanation though, I really hope Firewatch bucks the trend of poorly optimised Unity games!

That's someone who has never played it making an assumption based on the engine, I'd say for the most part it's *very* smooth though nothing is perfect.

There are a ton of reasons why games framerates are imperfect and a ton of specific reasons why that might be more or less likely with one engine over another, kind of too broad a topic to get in to here really. I'll be surprised if performance isn't good and consistent on Firewatch though since it seems like they can really control the scope of what's displayed on screen and there appears to be no heavy dynamics/gameplay stuff going on. That PSX footage was from a few months ago now too.

Quite looking forward to this game and will buy at whatever price they think it's worth.
 
Ok, watched a few videos - really hyped.

What do we know about the story?

Is this some sort of mystery?

The E3 trailer showed that someone was in your tower while you are out exploring (must be near the beginning of the game) so I would imagine part of this game is finding out who or what did that.
If I remember correctly the reason the character took a job in the wilderness was because he had just gotten divorced and wanted to move away.
The only form of communication you have is with your supervisor and you have some different options in how to respond to her.
 
Top Bottom