80s Bad Guy
Banned
That's where I got it, but someone earlier posted a bandcamp link.
https://camposantogames.bandcamp.com/album/firewatch-original-score
Firewatch | Spoiler Discussion
- Thread starter More_Badass
- Start date
That's where I got it, but someone earlier posted a bandcamp link.
https://camposantogames.bandcamp.com/album/firewatch-original-score
Yup, precisely.
People who assume that the detractors don't like this game because it didn't have any huge "epic" twist or whatever are completely misunderstanding the point.
Darryl M R
Member
What is the "big reveal" people are referring to? Is that just the ending? I've seen post referring to a tape from Henry explaining everything; did the poster mean Ned instead?
CrichtonKicks
Member
I think the devs were hyper aware of the exact right amount of Delila to put in for their goals. Because so much of what she says can be taken different ways. For example she knowingly shirks her duties in a significant way three times that she admits- first in allowing Brian to be there, then not reporting on Ned/Brian mysteriously leaving, and finally not reporting the incident with the girls.
Does she not report to cover her ass? Her job is clearly very important to her and she starts to really lose it toward the end when she thinks she may be held responsible for the fire and and the missing girls. Or was it compassion (first for Brian and then for Henry)? It's not clear- it's entirely left to the player to draw his own conclusion and try to use that in how he interacts with her.
Or her comments about "I don't talk to the other Lookouts as much as I talk to you". Is that actually true? Ned certainly seems to have developed a relationship with her (the record that never flips). Maybe she tells a lot of Lookouts that. Or maybe Henry really is unique. Once again left to the player to interpret.
So, yeah, I would really like to have had more interactions because they were the best part of the game but I also kind of get why they might have held back a bit (assuming that it's not all just budget related).
I agree. I would have been disappointed if the game took a turn favoring a big twist or suddenly became a genre story.
I prefer the more intimate, less closure ending it got to be honest. It felt truer the story told. I just finished it now and I really enjoyed the entire game, performance issues aside. It's not perfect, but it has a ton of great ideas that I felt, if taken to the next level could have been so amazing. I would have played a $60 version of this game that was hours longer and went deeper into the conversations and relationship between Henry and Delilah and maybe even the Goodwins to an extent. I was slightly disappointed every time the jump from day x to day y skipped so much time. I wanted to experience the time in between! So much potential.
Glad I supported the game in the end though. Absolutely worth the play through and goddamn those credits at the end. I really hope the feature to get you in-game photos printed and shipped comes to PS4 because I would order them in a hot second.
CrichtonKicks
Member
For those who have played both, how does Oxen Free fare in regard to dynamic and authentic feeling conversations compared to Firewatch?
I think it's slightly better than this in that regard, because you can naturally interrupt people mid-sentence and it feels very real.
Darryl M R
Member
I saw this on reddit and I agree:
The game feels like a semester in college. During that semester my roommate or classmates feel like the world to me. I am absorbed by what is around me, ignoring friends and family back at home. My small circle of friends feel like the center of the universe. But when the semester ends and we go on break (or graduate) it feels bittersweet. I'm moving to another stage of my life and the very act of moving on helps me grow as a person, but deep down I know I wouldn't mind staying in this moment; but I can't.
The game feels like a semester in college. During that semester my roommate or classmates feel like the world to me. I am absorbed by what is around me, ignoring friends and family back at home. My small circle of friends feel like the center of the universe. But when the semester ends and we go on break (or graduate) it feels bittersweet. I'm moving to another stage of my life and the very act of moving on helps me grow as a person, but deep down I know I wouldn't mind staying in this moment; but I can't.
CrichtonKicks
Member
What bugs me is that I get the sense that Henry isn't really moving on. He's basically being forcibly moved. He loses the forest and he loses Delilah. But I don't get the sense that he was ready for the next step, whatever that is (though I feel the devs are strongly saying he should go to Australia and be with his wife) So I find that profoundly sad.
Ghostbound
Member
I really enjoyed the game but found the ending to be very unsatisfying. You spend the entire time making a connection with Delilah only to be blown off and told that you should go back to your wife, who the player has no reason to care about.
Just finished it. Overall, I think I liked it, but I'll need some processing time. As a whole, it felt to me like a videogame version of a solid Sundance indie flick. It packs an interesting story with huge potential for emotional gut-punch, but for the most part, it just doesn't use that to its advantage. In the end, the individual story pieces could make an extraordinary narrative, but it just doesn't quite fit together. Or at least that's how I see it ten minutes after finishing it. Amazing atmosphere and great visuals though.
As for the "walkie-talkie" games this year, Oxenfree wins for me.
As for the "walkie-talkie" games this year, Oxenfree wins for me.
InaudibleWhispa
Member
I really enjoyed this it, but I feel like I was often on the verge of falling in love with it and I never got there. No issues with the story, I mostly just wanted a bit more D&H interaction. It was a bit too short and too eager to move on rather than let a moment breath and expand a bit. Overall though I thought the writing, acting and presentation in general were superb. I just wanted a bit more of it.
AHA-Lambda
Member
Just finished it, squandered potential is my prevailing opinion right now.
Anyway, one thing I didn't get:
Was it just Ned who was the one doing all the surveillance?
So what was the camp with the surveillance equipment all about? It manned 3 people, had military grade tech and kept recorded logs of psychological behaviour. I highly doubt that was just him =/
Anyway, one thing I didn't get:
Was it just Ned who was the one doing all the surveillance?
So what was the camp with the surveillance equipment all about? It manned 3 people, had military grade tech and kept recorded logs of psychological behaviour. I highly doubt that was just him =/
I think you're right, and I definitely think that's a question the devs want us to ask; whether or not Henry is really going to make the "right" decision or try to escape again. I like that you're given long-term choices to make in dialogue to Delilah such as "Move to Boulder with me" and such because it does feel like the possibility is logical at the time based on the quality time you just spent, but in the greater scheme of things and realistically, it's probably not going to happen.
It almost reminds me of getting in touch again with someone you haven't spoken to in years, catching up and then proposing to do something in the future, when a lot of the time nothing happens and you might end up not speaking to that person for a long time again, maybe even never.
This is why I think the ending actually works, and I don't think they copped out by not having Henry physically meet Delilah face-to-face because it says a lot about Delilah's character in the end.
The camp was just normal research on soil/plants, seismic activity and deer. Nothing out of the ordinary at all. D doesn't know about it because she's bad at her job. the fence was to protect all that nice tech from random people.
The papers about Henry and Delilah was Ned, and they were fake.
CrichtonKicks
Member
Yeah but why is going back to his wife in this situation correct? She's in Australia, with her family, being well cared for. It's a rough situation- this isn't a binary event like death or divorce. She is lost to the world but still alive so is it only right to stay married and be near her when he can literally do nothing for her now? Or does he have the right to move on with his life and try to seek happiness elsewhere? I feel like the devs are inserting a very strong moral judgment that the only correct thing is to go to Australia and anything else is problem avoidance and not healthy. I just don't know that I agree with that.
It was heavy handed imo. D flat out goes "if you love someone you should look after them" referring to Ned and his son, but it was also drawing parallels to Henry's position. The problem I have with that is the two situations are apples and oranges. So not only did I find it a bad way to tie the Ned story into back into Henry, I disagreed with it on a personal level.
CrichtonKicks
Member
Yes, this. Unlike a lot of others in the the thread I don't have a problem with the plot or how things play out. It's the specific message that the end sent that really, really bothers me. In a game where I think CS goes out of their way to allow aspects of the game to be open to interpretation this final bit just seems very black and white on top of being personally disagreeable.
The game didn't need to have a happy ending. But some level of catharsis to indicate that Henry had changed and was moving on (with the player given explicit or implied control of where that move was) would have felt much better.
Instead I feel that it's Delilah who actually has the personal revelation. She feels that her neglect makes her complicit in Brian's death. Her personality changes. Maybe for the better but there is change. Henry feels like he regressed right back to Day 1.
TheHollowNight
Member
I've already voiced my thoughts on the game regarding the story (I thought it was great), but I'm probably going to be a little bit controversial in saying I was a little disappointed by the overall visual and level design.
For the most part the game looked beautiful, the main areas were really well-crafted and gorgeous to take in, but my gosh, the game was occasionally really unpolished outside the 'golden path'. Some really bad communication in what was clear cut paths and what wasn't through the edges of areas. Sometimes you could navigate through dense shrubbery, sometimes you were blocked by waist high ones. Some really clumsy environment art jammed in here and there and spots that completely lacked any mesh detail or spots where you could see behind a rock mesh that had no back-facing. I kept running into areas where I wasn't allowed to walk or hop down foot-high ledges, or hitting weird invisible walls. That breaks immersion for me when the rest of the game is so damn good
I might be much more susceptible to noticing these things as I'm a level designer by trade, but it really broke my heart that a bunch of areas felt super rushed. For example, one spot down by the left of the waterfall:
it looks like the area was just blocked in with the basic terrain and a few trees, then totally forgotten about...
For the most part the game looked beautiful, the main areas were really well-crafted and gorgeous to take in, but my gosh, the game was occasionally really unpolished outside the 'golden path'. Some really bad communication in what was clear cut paths and what wasn't through the edges of areas. Sometimes you could navigate through dense shrubbery, sometimes you were blocked by waist high ones. Some really clumsy environment art jammed in here and there and spots that completely lacked any mesh detail or spots where you could see behind a rock mesh that had no back-facing. I kept running into areas where I wasn't allowed to walk or hop down foot-high ledges, or hitting weird invisible walls. That breaks immersion for me when the rest of the game is so damn good
I might be much more susceptible to noticing these things as I'm a level designer by trade, but it really broke my heart that a bunch of areas felt super rushed. For example, one spot down by the left of the waterfall:
it looks like the area was just blocked in with the basic terrain and a few trees, then totally forgotten about...
It may not be the correct decision, but then again it was Delilah essentially making the decision for him and maybe thinking that both of them can't really be together because they have unfinished business to attend to in their own separate lives. I think because the game begins with Henry making the decision to escape from his problems and take the job but ends with Delilah making the final decision is important because it's perhaps what SHE would do. We know Henry would probably not visit Australia because he couldn't face it, but with Delilah's recommendation, I think it shows character growth for Henry in the end.
Now, we don't specifically know if he goes through with it but we can assume that since it's what we're left with by the conclusion. I take it to mean that Henry learned something more from the experience than it being just about him meeting this woman he might never meet with again.
Delilah struggles with the notion of leaving the kid's body in the cave, and wants closure there by giving it proper burial and such. To me, it parallels Henry's situation to just leave Julie with her family and never see her again.
But I do agree that in the end, we honestly see more development with Delilah than we do Henry. But maybe in the end, since we're supposed to "be" Henry as indicated by the intro of the game identifying him as "you", we interpret the ending depending on what we would have done. It's loose. but Henry's character is mostly developed through our own dialogue decisions throughout the game. He's not very fleshed out until we give him specific history and dialogue.
SDCowboy
Member
My gripe with the ending wasn't that it wasn't something amazing. I just wanted there to be some closure. Did he go back to his wife? Did Delilah ever meet up with him down in Boulder? Did they ever even eventually meet? I've never liked endings that just end, and this was no exception.
I adored most of the rest of the game, though.
I adored most of the rest of the game, though.
I felt like I got closure to the story that was being told. To me, it was pretty obviously Delilah was never going to Boulder to see him. If she was they would have left on the same helicopter (at least that is how I interpreted it). It was very clear that he wasn't over Julia and while he went to the forest to get away from his past, he couldn't out run it. I am kind of curious if he went back to see Julia though. That is the one area I agree with you on. As for the situation with Delilah, I thought they made it very clear they would never meet while being still being a bit coy about it.
SDCowboy
Member
I'd still like to know what direction both his and Delilah's lives went afterwards. Like, do they at least write each other or something?
I hit a literal invisible wall up at the north of the map. It's just empty space that you can't enter.
All this space was impossible to move onto.
TheHollowNight
Member
I hit a literal invisible wall up at the north of the map. It's just empty space that you can't enter.
All this space was impossible to move onto.
Ughh, that's so frustrating to see
NightShift
Member
Is there any reason to play through the game a second time? (ie. What decisions actually make a difference?)
D
Deleted member 22576
Unconfirmed Member
I wanna give another go through at a much more relaxed pace and see if I can piece it together a bit better.
TheHollowNight
Member
I'm definitely going to play through at least once more to embody Henry as a shitty garbage man, making all the worst decisions, or just totally ignore Delilah as much as possible
I heard you can play through the game without ever telling the truth about Julia so Delilah doesn't recommend you go back to her, but I think that's the only major change. All the major plot points are the exact same.
semiconscious
Member
just finished, & this's what i walked away with. which, despite the cool on-going conversation between the 2 leads, really kills this game dead for me. it's like it was all just a red herring
...Emperor_Uriel
Member
Copied from the OT:
Finished, decided to look around the internet for impressions and... yikes.
I love how many people on the Steam forums are starting to paint this as a anti-male game thanks to the ending and the credits mentioning Anita Sarkessian.
I think a lot of people missed the part where Delilah, who initiated any potential romance with you in the first place when the fire first appeared, is open to visiting Henry after they both deal with their own loose ends.
It's a bit frightening how hostile some people are to the idea that a woman who feels attraction towards them still might not be comfortable helping them cheat on their severely ill wife. Especially a woman who just learned of her own involvement in the death of an innocent person, and one who may still have relationship obligations of her own to iron out.
Finished, decided to look around the internet for impressions and... yikes.
I love how many people on the Steam forums are starting to paint this as a anti-male game thanks to the ending and the credits mentioning Anita Sarkessian.
I think a lot of people missed the part where Delilah, who initiated any potential romance with you in the first place when the fire first appeared, is open to visiting Henry after they both deal with their own loose ends.
It's a bit frightening how hostile some people are to the idea that a woman who feels attraction towards them still might not be comfortable helping them cheat on their severely ill wife. Especially a woman who just learned of her own involvement in the death of an innocent person, and one who may still have relationship obligations of her own to iron out.
Ugh (not to the mention of Anita, but to those Steam users)
Just finished. Enjoyed my play through, but definitely feel let down by the conclusion. The conspiracy theorist in my was going crazy when it started getting tense, but the actual story with Ned trying to cover up his son's death or whatever kinda left me feeling meh.
The red herrings are a bummer.
The red herrings are a bummer.
TheHollowNight
Member
She was once on an episode of Idle Thumbs! oh no collusion! etc etc...BARF
Barry Burton
Member
Just finished it.
I liked the game overall, but along with many others, I'm not that high on the way that the story wrapped up. It's not so much that it has a mundane ending; I'm fine that the game didn't conclude with the big twist that I was expecting it to.
But subverting expectations seems to be a big focal point of Firewatch, and I think it ends up being too big of a focus. To the point where it feels like it was subverting expectations just for the sake of subverting expectations. "It worked with Gone Home, right?!"
I don't feel like this game has a suitable payoff to all of the misdirection and red herrings. The revelation about Ned felt way too much like Sean Vanaman's same ham-fisted twist from The Walking Dead --
I enjoyed the overall experience, but the ending has left me feeling pretty empty. They did a pretty good job of establishing my relationship with a voice on the other end of the radio, but I think they could have done it much better by allowing it to have more time to breathe, and to not obsess over making you wonder if you're an unreliable narrator, or of Delilah is lying to you, or if there's this secret experiment going on. It missed the mark.
Loved the Easter eggs, though. Caught references to The Last of Us, Gone Home, and Metal Gear Solid. I'm sure there were others.
I liked the game overall, but along with many others, I'm not that high on the way that the story wrapped up. It's not so much that it has a mundane ending; I'm fine that the game didn't conclude with the big twist that I was expecting it to.
But subverting expectations seems to be a big focal point of Firewatch, and I think it ends up being too big of a focus. To the point where it feels like it was subverting expectations just for the sake of subverting expectations. "It worked with Gone Home, right?!"
I don't feel like this game has a suitable payoff to all of the misdirection and red herrings. The revelation about Ned felt way too much like Sean Vanaman's same ham-fisted twist from The Walking Dead --
there's a guy following you around the whole time, doing stuff.
I enjoyed the overall experience, but the ending has left me feeling pretty empty. They did a pretty good job of establishing my relationship with a voice on the other end of the radio, but I think they could have done it much better by allowing it to have more time to breathe, and to not obsess over making you wonder if you're an unreliable narrator, or of Delilah is lying to you, or if there's this secret experiment going on. It missed the mark.
Loved the Easter eggs, though. Caught references to The Last of Us, Gone Home, and Metal Gear Solid. I'm sure there were others.
Gray Matter
Member
One thing that wasn't clear to me, when D was talking when the phone lines were down, did the game ever say who she was talking to?
I remember her saying "he has no idea" which makes me think it was Ned she was talking too.
I remember her saying "he has no idea" which makes me think it was Ned she was talking too.
She was reporting the break in.
I saw earlier that someone in this thread brought up an interview that mentioned an potential alternate ending, but did anyone bring up that Sean Vanaman tweeted earlier today about it?
The validity of whether or not it existed was brought into question, so I just figured I'd bring it back up in case no one has. Doesn't sound substantial, but could be interesting.
The validity of whether or not it existed was brought into question, so I just figured I'd bring it back up in case no one has. Doesn't sound substantial, but could be interesting.
TheHollowNight
Member
I saw earlier that someone in this thread brought up an interview that mentioned an potential alternate ending, but did anyone bring up that Sean Vanaman tweeted earlier today about it?
The validity of whether or not it existed was brought into question, so I just figured I'd bring it back up in case no one has. Doesn't sound substantial, but could be interesting.
it's this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icvxHXkcgtY&ab_channel=IGNWalkthroughs
Oh, it's right in the replies to the tweet, hah.
Gray Matter
Member
mysocksarepink
Banned
Delilah
You bitch!!!
God that story had ups and downs and lefts and rights. Amazing
You bitch!!!
God that story had ups and downs and lefts and rights. Amazing
The problem is the entire game is leading up to something greater than what is actually there. You're CONSTANTLY encouraged to go do what Delilah needs of you to progress the story. You're led by the nose every step of the way and the game consistently ramps up expectations of what's around the corner to reveal what is ultimately a small-scale personal tale of loss. The buildup feels at odds with the conclusion.
If instead they slowed the pace of the game down to let the player relax and explore and just EXIST in the world, and let Henry stumble on to things like the girls' destroyed tent and the research station instead of being almost explicitly led to the next plot point the ending would have gone over better. Present the game as a more personal experience, especially in regards to Julia, instead of OMG WE ARE BEING STALKED, CONSPIRACY THEORIES, etc and the whole package would have resonated more with me personally.
As it is the game seems kind of schizophrenic, like it didn't really know what it wanted to be. The ending is just the most obvious product of that.
chrominance
Member
Just finished it.
I'm kind of surprised at the disappointment in the ending, specifically the bits about not being able to hook up with Delilah and the bits about how everything was a red herring and it was fucking nothing. Part of that might just be the game having a very specific story to tell and being bad at pretending there might be alternate options, or maybe the story itself just didn't resonate at all.
I thought it all worked out decently. You don't really know what's what out in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but think, so to have someone tweak things here and there to convince you of a conspiracy doesn't feel far-fetched. I didn't feel like it was all for nothing; clearly Ned didn't want to be found, and he didn't want Brian to be found either. He could have any number of reasons for this, from guilt (for killing Brian) to shame (for not killing Brian but not being able to save him/putting him in a position to be killed) to just plain madness. Why did Ned wreck the camp? Possibly to pit the teens against Henry, and hopefully force both of them out of the forest. It jibes with the notes you find in Ned's hideout where he later tries to see if he can pit Henry against Delilah. Ned's basically making it up as he goes along.
As for Wapiti Station, most of the tech is unknown and can easily be explained away as research equipment. Everything we know about what's there comes from Henry and Delilah, and it's clear they don't know what they're talking about, so I don't think you're supposed to take the assertions of "this stuff looks super expensive" and "military-grade tech" at face value. The tracking stuff could be explained easily as wildlife studies. The reports were fabricated. The map may have been tracking Henry's movements, or they could've been tracking the only real paths available in the forest, or just animal movements.
Some pieces don't fit, though. The strange backpack with the cave key doesn't seem to have been placed by Ned, if I read his logs properly. But if he didn't place it there, who did? Why set an alarm if not Ned? It couldn't have been there all along, because the wave receiver doesn't pick it up until hours after Henry finds it. I don't have a good reason for that one and it's still the biggest plot hole (unless it's explained by something I never found, it looks like there's a lot of mysterious stuff off the beaten path). Never mind, finally read through the whole thread again and found the "Brian hid it" explanation. That actually makes some sense, though I still don't quite get the alarm.
Delilah and Henry. I'm kind of surprised so many people were disappointed when they didn't shack up together. Even after the witty banter and the occasional drunken flirting (mostly/entirely from Delilah), it never really occurred to me that anything would happen. Even if there was something there for Henry and he wasn't married, I would think that having the worst summer in your 13 years as a fire watch supervisor and then losing your job would not exactly put me in a romantic mood, not immediately and probably not ever. Throw in Henry's baggage and the chances seem remote. But again, maybe that's people responding badly to the story the game seems to want to tell; if the game didn't sell you on that ending, it didn't sell you on it, regardless of what I think.
Anyways. I think it was decent for what it was. It didn't blow me away IGN.com, but it did look very pretty (like really astonishingly pretty at times), I enjoyed the dialogue, and it was an interesting short story of a game to play.
I'm kind of surprised at the disappointment in the ending, specifically the bits about not being able to hook up with Delilah and the bits about how everything was a red herring and it was fucking nothing. Part of that might just be the game having a very specific story to tell and being bad at pretending there might be alternate options, or maybe the story itself just didn't resonate at all.
I thought it all worked out decently. You don't really know what's what out in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but think, so to have someone tweak things here and there to convince you of a conspiracy doesn't feel far-fetched. I didn't feel like it was all for nothing; clearly Ned didn't want to be found, and he didn't want Brian to be found either. He could have any number of reasons for this, from guilt (for killing Brian) to shame (for not killing Brian but not being able to save him/putting him in a position to be killed) to just plain madness. Why did Ned wreck the camp? Possibly to pit the teens against Henry, and hopefully force both of them out of the forest. It jibes with the notes you find in Ned's hideout where he later tries to see if he can pit Henry against Delilah. Ned's basically making it up as he goes along.
As for Wapiti Station, most of the tech is unknown and can easily be explained away as research equipment. Everything we know about what's there comes from Henry and Delilah, and it's clear they don't know what they're talking about, so I don't think you're supposed to take the assertions of "this stuff looks super expensive" and "military-grade tech" at face value. The tracking stuff could be explained easily as wildlife studies. The reports were fabricated. The map may have been tracking Henry's movements, or they could've been tracking the only real paths available in the forest, or just animal movements.
Delilah and Henry. I'm kind of surprised so many people were disappointed when they didn't shack up together. Even after the witty banter and the occasional drunken flirting (mostly/entirely from Delilah), it never really occurred to me that anything would happen. Even if there was something there for Henry and he wasn't married, I would think that having the worst summer in your 13 years as a fire watch supervisor and then losing your job would not exactly put me in a romantic mood, not immediately and probably not ever. Throw in Henry's baggage and the chances seem remote. But again, maybe that's people responding badly to the story the game seems to want to tell; if the game didn't sell you on that ending, it didn't sell you on it, regardless of what I think.
Anyways. I think it was decent for what it was. It didn't blow me away IGN.com, but it did look very pretty (like really astonishingly pretty at times), I enjoyed the dialogue, and it was an interesting short story of a game to play.
Spring-Loaded
Member
What was in Ned's makeshift bunker at the top of the hill? I just left well enough alone since he said he didn't want to be found, and figured there was probably booby trap or something in it
CrichtonKicks
Member
Pretty much the explanation for every piece of plot in the game. There are tons of notes and stuff to collect that lay out Ned's involvement in the plot. It also shows a lot of scavenged gear from the research station (and snowmobile), a little surveillance spot, mementos from Brian, and other stuff.
Father's day card, other knick-knaks from Brian. The two girls busted boombox, other various electronics and a stash of large batteries. Early drafts of Henry's and Delilah's 'character sheets.' Food, survival gear etc.
Spring-Loaded
Member
ah
Thanks!
The photos at the end ;-;
Thanks!
The photos at the end ;-;