Firewatch |OT| With Me

We put put an update which smooths out a lot of the pops/hitches people were seeing at launch and heard a lot of positive feedback about it. I think it runs well now on PS4 but you probably want to get that opinion checked by someone who isn't a dev on the game:). We are still also hoping for a lower level update including performance fixes from Unity but we don't have a timeline on that.
 
Jake said:
We put put an update which smooths out a lot of the pops/hitches people were seeing at launch and heard a lot of positive feedback about it. I think it runs well now on PS4 but you probably want to get that opinion checked by someone who isn't a dev on the game:). We are still also hoping for a lower level update including performance fixes from Unity but we don't have a timeline on that.
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I ended up buying it last night. Got to Day 2 before going to bed. So far I think it's a pretty amazing game and I'm not seeing any performance issues that are distracting me from gameplay. Good work!
 
Purchased on PS4 - loved the environment and graphics. The story about Julia was so touching and I loved the premise of someone coming out to the woods to do something different...and I loved the intrigue as well. But I only loved the intrigue while it was mysterious. The final story was just eh. :/

Regardless, I am really glad games like this are being made.

Super disappointed that the awesome in game posters are no longer being sold. ;_;
 
I just beat it. It's really a phenomenal game and an excellent work of art.

That said, the performance issues definitely reared their ugly head in the 2nd and especially 3rd acts of the game. Hell, even the end credits had moments where they were stuttering. Credits! It was enough to take me out of the game at times, but thankfully the story was so great that I really didn't care. But honestly I feel like a game like this should be able to run at smooth 60fps on PS4. The fact that it's struggling to hit 30 is... Interesting. Not sure what happened here in that regard.

But overall I would not let the performance issues deter you from buying and playing this. Truly an excellent experience.
 
//ARCANUM said:
But honestly I feel like a game like this should be able to run at smooth 60fps on PS4. The fact that it's struggling to hit 30 is... Interesting. Not sure what happened here in that regard.
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Unity is what happened.

From memory they were working on multi-threading for consoles and don't think that it has hit yet.

Single core performance is obv terrible on the Jaguar CPU on PS4.
 
Black Hat said:
Unity is what happened.

From memory they were working on multi-threading for consoles and don't think that it has hit yet.

Single core performance is obv terrible on the Jaguar CPU on PS4.
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Wow. Unity sounds awful. It only allows for games to run on a SINGLE CORE? Whatyearisthis.gif
 
//ARCANUM said:
Wow. Unity sounds awful. It only allows for games to run on a SINGLE CORE? Whatyearisthis.gif
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It's the year in which they fix it. It's really nice. Just still in beta and not ready to bump Firewatch to. Once it is, we will.

Unity is actually great for what it's worth. It's the most pleasant game engine to create 3D content in, I think. They are rapidly playing core tech catch up right now though. (Fortunately they seem to be getting there! Between the new renderer introduced in 5.0 last year, and the better multithreading coming in 5.4 and beyond, the engine is taking huuuge leaps right now.)
 
Jake said:
It's the year in which they fix it. It's really nice. Just still in beta and not ready to bump Firewatch to. Once it is, we will.

Unity is actually great for what it's worth. It's the most pleasant game engine to create 3D content in, I think. They are rapidly playing core tech catch up right now though. (Fortunately they seem to be getting there! Between the new renderer introduced in 5.0 last year, and the better multithreading coming in 5.4 and beyond, the engine is taking huuuge leaps right now.)
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Ah well good to know! And thanks for the info! Great work on FIREWATCH btw. Fantastic game and I'm glad I played it and will be recommending it to many others. :)
 
I played through on PS4 in a single extended sitting a week or so ago and loved it. I was concerned about PS4 performance but had no issues with how it played. I was lost in the story and world from start to finish.

I thought the intro storytelling design was very effective and sensible in a game of this scope. I found it an effective way to come up to speed with the character enough to avoid being showered with un-requested exposition as is often the case.

I turned off the 'I am here' marker on the map as many have suggested. It was nice figuring out where to go based on sign posts and looking for paths. I'd have enjoyed more exploration within the wilderness and more meaningful tools to do so.

6/10 IGN
 
radaxian said:
I played through on PS4 in a single extended sitting a week or so ago and loved it. I was concerned about PS4 performance but had no issues with how it played. I was lost in the story and world from start to finish.

I thought the intro storytelling design was very effective and sensible in a game of this scope. I found it an effective way to come up to speed with the character enough to avoid being showered with un-requested exposition as is often the case.

I turned off the 'I am here' marker on the map as many have suggested. It was nice figuring out where to go based on sign posts and looking for paths. I'd have enjoyed more exploration within the wilderness and more meaningful tools to do so.

6/10 IGN
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Regarding your last paragraph, if you have an Xbox, check out The Long Dark.

I still want to play Firewatch. Hope it gets on sale soon.
 
Played through this a couple of days ago. Had quite a few issues with framerate, but the world was gorgeous, voice acting was strong and I was unnerved by the atmosphere throughout. The ending was a bit underwhelming given the lead-up, but still overall a fun experience.
 
Just finished this game. I rarely feel that technical performance has a big effect on my enjoyment of a game but in this case it did. In fact, i think it is the worst performing game i have played in a long time. The framerate was all over the place, especially while running. At times in the game, the framerate almost froze to zero.

And that is a real shame because the game was genuinely interesting and beautiful (in visuals, music, sound effects and voice acting). In fact, if this had smooth framerate, this would probably be amongst the more memorable games i've played.

Though i agree that the surprise is gone after the first playthrough, i might consider replaying if and when the developers manage rock solid framerates.
 
Picked this up last night and completed just now.

Ending was a bit of a let down, but the experience was alright.

Decent game I would recommend to anyone who likes the genre, but couldnt quite reach life is strange levels of greatness.
 
I loved this game. Honestly,
I didn't think the ending was underwhelming at all. I thought it was spot-on with the overall narrative. It was real. I would have been disappointed if it would have turned too sci-fi or offbeat. Not because I don't like that kind of stuff (<3 Life is Strange [Bay > Bae tbh]) but because it wasn't that kind of story, imo.

I'm a big fan of the developers too (long-time Idle Thumbs listener). I'm really looking forward to whatever their next project is too. I'm guessing they'll start on something else eventually since Firewatch seems to have been a success for the most part.
 
Guys, I completed The Order: 1886 yesterday, which is the first game I have completed this year. Pretty happy about that. Now I have played Firewatch for like 3 hours straight, and is at this kid's hideout, but I have no idea how to progress from there. Can you lead me in the right direction?
 
Madridista said:
Guys, I completed The Order: 1886 yesterday, which is the first game I have completed this year. Pretty happy about that. Now I have played Firewatch for like 3 hours straight, and is at this kid's hideout, but I have no idea how to progress from there. Can you lead me in the right direction?
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Look under the family crest painted plywood board. There's also an exit on that side of the room.
 
I bought this on release on Steam but only just got around to starting it last night. I finished it just now.

The game reminded me a lot of a much, MUCH, better execution of Gone Home. It was beautiful, sparse, and believable. I thought the intrigue was fantastic, the mounting paranoia as the game progressed felt palpable, and I really wasn't sure if it was the characters going slightly crazy or if they were really justified. I thought the ending was subdued, but the right call.

I do have one question though. I'll just say end game spoilers:

Was Ned just taking over that research base while they were away for the summer portion of the year? There was one note that said the Doctor would be there from August 15th to October 15th, and I think the game took place earlier in the summer than that. It also looked like they had completely normal environmental monitoring equipment in there, but then they had the tracker and notes. That was my take on the Watiki base.
 
Just bought Firewatch during the Steam sale for $13, beat it in about 3 hours and really enjoyed my time with it. Dialogue felt really natural for not only being a video game but also a video game were two characters aren't playing off each other in a physical space. The story was a lot different than I expected, I was thinking it would be a little lighter in tone throughout but overall it was really interesting the whole way through.

I did feel the ending was left kind of ambiguous, but it worked for the type of story they were telling and it worked and made sense given the situation. Overall it was a great game and I'm glad I finally was able to play it, look forward to their next game!

The game is gorgeous too, it had it's performance problems for me as it would fluctuate between 60fps and 30ish fps, but the art direction and overall style was top notch and really felt alive and vibrant. Here's one of my favorite pics from my photo roll (really neat feature too).

deeba923-a79a-4ccd-80d7-7e4a3911414c_normal.jpg
 
I also just played though this in one setting after buying in the Steam sell, though my playtime says 6 hours as I really took my time.

I really loved it! Looks amazing, great atmosphere, great dialogue and writing. Easily my favorite 'walking simulator' to date.
 
Some of you must have collected the Richard Sturgeon "Crime By The Numbers" books in Firewatch, yeah? Well&#8230;

CnQ8d3BUIAAnR5U.jpg:large


&#8230;you might (or might not) be excited to know, this box set of 10 little notebooks will be hitting the Campo Santo store next week.

I think they turned out really good, I'm super excited about them.

(DM received! Free set gone! Thank you for playing! :) )
 
i bought this during the steam sale and powered through it in 2 sittings, thought it was great

acting was really well done. couple of minor loading hitches during my playthrough but nothing big
 
It must be said that the Firewatch Theme is very, very good. In fact, it's my favorite next to the Journey Theme.

Wholeheartedly recommended!

The game by the way, is also awesome...
 
cabel said:
Some of you must have collected the Richard Sturgeon "Crime By The Numbers" books in Firewatch, yeah? Well…

CnQ8d3BUIAAnR5U.jpg:large


…you might (or might not) be excited to know, this box set of 10 little notebooks will be hitting the Campo Santo store next week.

I think they turned out really good, I'm super excited about them.

(DM received! Free set gone! Thank you for playing! :) )
Click to expand...

They are so beautiful! Want!

Free copy? Whaaa? Darn I missed it. :(
 
BruceLeeRoy said:
Is it still on sale on PS4? How much?
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EU store, €12 for PS+ members.

I'm conflicted but I've still decided to wait for Unity 5.4 to bring MT to consoles and the following performance enhancing patch that Campo Santo promised, maybe it'll be even cheaper by then
 
I bought the game the other day after seeing it on sale on EU PSN and it was a really nice experience.

I actually rushed it quite a bit and reaaaally regret it, especially after reading some comments here about how people really immersed themselves in the atmosphere.
I'll have to replay it some time.

Thanks for the game!
 
Bought it on sale and finished it after two days... didnt rush it... felt pretty short but liked almost every part of it. Great atmosphere and story going on
until the end
, but could had a bigger scope. It was like a Lost episode.
 
Finished it yesterday. Loved pretty much all of it: story, graphics, voice acting, music, animations. Even the chapter transitions tickled my fancy with the sudden cuts to black. Performance fluctuated between 30 and 60 fps on ultra @ 1080p for me (i3-4160, GTX 660 3GB VRAM), which was a bit of a surprise given all the word about performance. Between 30 and 60 is perfectly fine for this type of game.

The ending left me sour for a moment, but the more I think about it, the more I find it kind of fitting:
reality comes knocking, what did you expect was going to happen? No happily ever after for Henry and Delilah, Henry has to face his wife again if only to say goodbye to her, and Delilah is devastated because she found out that kid died and she could have prevented that and needs time to get over that while being away from Henry. Maybe they'll get together later on, when they've dealt with their respective messes. Maybe. How else could it have ended? Some big government conspiracy with men in suits with guns? Looking back, the game's scale was too small for it to be like that. Props to Campo Santo for making the story feel bigger in our heads than it was in practice, at the time when the tensions reach their peak.

Now why are those damn posters out of print?! People love this game, the world, the story and the people in it. I get that there's something special about a limited production run for these things, but I think the studio can understand just as well that there are still large amounts of people who would love to have these on their wall, myself included. And if people love what you've made so much, I see no reason not to let them express that in this way.

EDIT: Or make paid digital versions of them available, at least! I'll print them myself!

EDIT2: one thing I don't understand about the story:
why didn't Ned dispose of his son's body if he was so keen to cover up his boy's death? Plot hole?
edit3: nvm, got it
 
Finished this last night after getting it on the Steam Sale.


I liked it but the end kind of didn't sit well with me. Not that anything that happened didn't make sense or felt out of place but the pacing felt awkward and the whole left turn in the plot about 1/3 or 1/2 way through felt underdeveloped and kind of ended up dominating too much of the game. The interplay between Henry and Delilah is really the core of the game and I kind of wish the game focused more on that over the course of the Summer and avoided some of the jump cuts that come on really fast and furious there which left me feeling a little cut off from Henry and Delilah.

The whole subplot with
whether you're being tracked and the paranoia surrounding that was really great but its also where i think the game went off the rails a little bit. Up to that point I was thinking this was kind of just a mundane walking simulator game with some lovely banter and you'd explore the emotional reasons for Henry leaving and Delilah's whole angle. But that stuff kind of gets put on the back burner when the game starts acting like a thriller and you're trying to figure out what is going on with Wapiti Station and who is tracking you and Delilah. Up to the point where Ned knocks Henry out, I was starting to wonder if the game was going to take some psychological big twist, like he's actually the one with dementia and this is all something going on in his head or something crazy. Then Ned attacks Henry and its clearly not just something psychological going on but some sort of real stalker situation which kind of changes the tone again into something more sinister. Then you uncover what's going at the end and realize it wasn't some government tracking project or anything huge but it's still kind of crazy with Ned going crazy and coming up with elaborate schemes to hide his son's body.

I feel like that's where the game's tone got muddled for me. I get that the whole thing is about Henry and Delilah basically escaping their realities and then getting embroiled in this increasingly absurd situation where they're getting all paranoid and then they get pulled back to reality via uncovering Ben's death and the fire forcing them to leave. But Ned's schemes ARE completely crazy and the fact that he is actually physically attacking Henry makes that just as real as Henry dealing with his wife's condition. I almost feel like they could have still dealt with the Ned/Ben subplot but done it without Ned being an actual crazy person scheming in your immediate vicinity. Just have Henry and/or Delilah find things like Wapiti Station and that sort of thing and still do the paranoia angle but leave it where they're just wondering if they're crazy until the discovery of Ben's body snaps them back to reality.
Or not. Something felt off about how the game progressed in terms of tone and structure. I know what they were going for with everything but it just felt a little flat and anticlimactic.


The voice acting is great and really carries the game, but I can't quite shake the feeling that something was missing or off about how the game wrapped up. As for the ending, I didn't need to have Henry
meet Delilah in person (since it seemed like they were purposefully avoiding other character models and her keeping her distance makes sense) but it would have at least been nice to see a picture of her or something when you go in her tower at the end. Not seeing her at all in any way felt a bit too smarmy of the developers to me.
 
I kind of liked how every player had their own picture of Delilah in their mind, actually. Plus it felt like the ultimate denial. You don't even get to see Delilah, go see your damn wife.
 
Just recently bought and ploughed through the game. I liked it. Best thing overall was the voice acting. Top notch. Music was good. Graphics were alright. Even with patchwork to PS4 it still kind of chugged along on which in any other setting would piss me off but since the game was set in mountainous/hilly terrain it almost seemed fitting.

$20 is a bit steep as it appears the only differences from game to game are the dialogue. Which I will probably give another go sometime with different choices.

After the reveal the plot went kerplunk.
Who were these characters again? Why the hell is the dude terrorizing a volunteer firewatcher? It didn't make any sense. Some better story could have been put in there other than that even if it wasn't something farfetched...government/aliens/outlandish idea
. I did however like the reveal
of Delilah's camp...you could see she was being honest with the main character throughout the game that left hope for the future.
.

What is up with the environment though? Where are the animals? They were alluded to in the game. Bear traps sitting around. Noises from time to time(Geese/Ducks by the lake). Only animal I saw though was a butterfly. I'm out there months and all I see is a butterfly? Come on. That was a missed opportunity to sell the setting and put in some themes revolving animals that tie into the main story.

While Life Is Strange is a top tier game in the same vein...walk around/make decisions, I can't say the same for Firewatch. It was intriguing and tense at times but the payoff wasn't there in the plot. I think with a little more effort the game could have been flawless.
 
Nice game. One and done because nothing you do effects the ending or anything so I don't feel like playing the game over like Until Dawn for example. Still, I have the feeling of completing a book when I finished, the story resonated, voice acting was good, I cared about Deliah and Henry.

Still I echo many users that say the ending is abrupt or something feels missing. It absolutely does. The sub plot definitely could have used more fleshing out, and honestly, it could have built up more the main characters before things got weird, that would have helped replay value maybe?

Regardless, as much as I liked it, appreciate the sense of real world situations and reality the devs were trying to infuse,
something about not seeing Deliah, not even a photo AND her being reluctant towards you makes me doubt the genuineness of the entire relationship. The closure for the player just wasn't there, and simply because that's what happens in life sometimes doesn't make it a good way to close the plot. I live in the world, I don't need to play it lol...
So yeah, it's hard to not harp on the game because the ending in a short title like this is extremely important. I can overlook the technical issues, but yea, I think some are just going to feel cheated with the ending, they could have made it sad, somewhere in between, they met for one incredible night and never saw each other, who knows. But the ambiguity of what happens to these characters is not there IMO. I'm not left wondering if they'll ever see each other or anything like that, Deliah makes it pretty clear, she was just "having some fun in the woods, now it's back to my real life." I thought that could have been expounded better.
 
So after sitting in my backlog for a while I finally played through this in a couple sittings

I loved it but

Am I the only one who half expected to suddenly end up in a doctors office going into the cave? I was definitely starting to get a this really is all in my head vibe..was wondering if I was the only one
 
Oneself said:
What's the latest "update history" on PS4?
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Update went live today to PS4 in the Americas and Europe regions (its live everywhere the games available on PS4) that includes Firewatch Audio Tour and an update to Unity 5.4 which helps performance. There are also more updates on the way in the coming weeks including more optimizations and the Free Roam mode.
 
Jake said:
Update went live today to PS4 in the Americas and Europe regions (its live everywhere the games available on PS4) that includes Firewatch Audio Tour and an update to Unity 5.4 which helps performance. There are also more updates on the way in the coming weeks including more optimizations and the Free Roam mode.
Click to expand...
Oh cool thanks! 2nd playthrough incoming then! &#128513;
 
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