Firewatch game review. Weekend gambling. firewatch. Watch Firewatch Walkthrough

Game tested onPS4

Each of us has ever wanted to be alone. Get away from annoying problems, immerse yourself in yourself, relax and be distracted. That's exactly what he did main character Firewatch named Henry - the story was fascinating, but nowhere near as deep as many might expect.

⇡ Rest only in our dreams

The plot of the game takes place in 1989, a few months after the infamous fire in the American national park Yellowstone. Henry arrives in Wyoming and takes a job as an observer on an observation tower in the woods. We did not know about the reasons for his stay in this place before the release, but they turned out to be understandable and are explained with the help of the prologue. The decisions made in it will partially affect the dialogues with Henry's boss - Delilah.

It is Delilah who is the only character with whom Henry keeps in touch and has the ability to communicate via a walkie-talkie. The observer does not have a permanent job, you have to do something only in case of danger, and one arises almost immediately - the developers talked about it two years ago. Some hooligans set off fireworks near the lake, which raises the possibility of a fire, and Henry goes to find them and teach them a lesson.

The hero has a card, which he holds in his hands and raises at the touch of a button. The desired location is almost never indicated directly, you have to navigate either by the names of lakes and canyons, or with the help of Delilah's prompts and a compass. It is worth going in the wrong direction, as in most cases it will be possible to contact the boss, and she will hint where to go. It's not easy to get lost here, and the possible paths are always obvious, although for clarity, you can look for other people's maps throughout the forest and draw all the available paths on your own - these are a kind of collectible items.

Despite the openness of the world created by the developers, there is no non-linearity here. The game is divided into several chapters, each of which is one day in Henry's life in the forest, during which he has to go somewhere and solve problems. Either hooligans on the lake, or cut wires, or something else that was not shown in the trailers and which we will not talk about. From the very first day, an element of mystery appears in this story, which gradually makes the passage more and more exciting.

Since Delilah is the only character who communicates with Henry, you can talk to her on almost every occasion. Found something unusual - contact her. We saw an interesting location - she is always ready to discuss it. You can’t cope with something - the girl will surely give advice. There are a lot of dialogues here, so even an ordinary walk to the tower will certainly be accompanied by conversations about a cave in a canyon, a toilet in the middle of a forest, beer cans lying on the ground, and about the protagonist's past.

And the dialogues here are, without exaggeration, delightful. There is a feeling that Cissy Jones (Katya from the second season of The Walking Dead) and Rich Sommer ("Mad Men") do not play, but really are the boss and observer on the tower - their conversations sound so convincing. They constantly joke, react to what is happening, always find topics for discussion. And it cannot be said that this is the merit of the scriptwriters only (by the way, they previously worked on the first season The Walking Dead) who did an excellent job. Such acting, believe me, there has not been a video game for a long time.

Therefore, as soon as it becomes possible to contact Delilah by radio, you press the button immediately - you want to listen to how the discussion will end in the end. Developers from Campo Santo have developed the idea of ​​modern "walking simulators" with two simple things: division into chapters and the ability not only to study objects around, but to discuss them with a "living" person. There are practically no notes, audio diaries and boring videos - if you get any information about the object, it is only from Delilah. The ability to choose in the dialogues also adds interest - you can remain silent, laugh it off, and sometimes even say some kind of rudeness.

⇡ foliage noise

Unfortunately, the passage will not last long. The developers promised about six hours of gameplay, but it's hard to imagine what you can do in the game for so long. Even if you study every thing and contact the boss for any reason, end credits you will see after four hours, and if you just run ahead of the story (by the way, we do not recommend doing this), then you will spend no more than three at all. Moreover, closer to the finale, the authors force you to walk around idle from one corner of the map to another too often, which artificially delays the passage and exhausts you a little. Although the dialogues partly draw out even such situations.

Such a short duration looks strange and arouses suspicion. Especially when you consider that the first half hour of Firewatch was shown two years ago, and since then little has changed in the initial chapters. On the Steam forums, the developers wrote that it was not easy to add an extra hour or two to the story they invented - it was finished and did not need additional chapters. But in reality this is not entirely true.

Toward the middle of the passage of riddles and mysticism, it becomes more and more, and you expect interesting and unusual twists from the game, but in the end you get nothing. The authors are preparing you for something grandiose, but in reality everything turns out to be too simple and banal, and some moments even seem far-fetched. Even the ending turned out, frankly, no - it will have one great episode that will answer one of the questions, but otherwise the ending is crumpled and too fast.

And it would be nice if there was a non-linearity, for the sake of which the game could be played several times in a row. But this is not here either, since the consequences of the choice in the dialogues are so insignificant that you don’t notice them - the story will not change in any way and will not offer anything new. Henry and Delilah's conversations are great, but you don't want to start all over again for the sake of previously unheard remarks.

Don't think Firewatch is bad game. This is not true. For a debut project, this is an excellent result, even taking into account the fact that most of the Campo Santo employees are professionals in their field, and not enthusiastic beginners. But when you listen to excellent dialogues and enjoy beautiful music from the composer Gone Home, you see the forest changing with each new day of summer, you want to get a more detailed story. Perhaps the creators had to abandon the mystery and just show the relationship of adults, but now you can’t change anything.

Due to glitches, the forest is not visible
Amazing things happened to the PlayStation 4 version during the playthrough. During the first passage, the author of these lines constantly observed “jamming” of the image and slowdowns during the movement, and a couple of times he completely fell through the ground, since a whole piece of forest disappeared without a trace. As soon as the game was restarted, most of these problems disappeared, although the drop in frame rate and “brakes” during frequent autosaves still remained. The game, by the way, can easily hang during the loading process. Therefore, we advise you to go through the project on a PC - there, they say, there are noticeably fewer problems.

Trailers Firewatch lured by fantastically beautiful landscapes and hinted at some terrible secret hidden in the forests of Wyoming. In the commercials, the forester wandered among the trees and rocks, and all around was going on strange. It looked like something along the lines of Alan Wake and novels by Stephen King - calm, suddenly replaced by enveloping horror and an irrepressible sense of anxiety. But we were deceived.

The game really makes you nervous and worried, but not at all out of fear of being eaten by a creepy monster. Firewatch is a game about relationships, about loneliness and running away from yourself. Damn beautiful.

slow man

Henry, main character Firewatch, by no means a big lover of nature, as one might think. Sitting on a fire tower in the deep woods is his way of escaping from oppressive problems in his personal life.

But don't jump to conclusions we are talking not at all about the classic troubles, like misunderstandings or betrayals. Henry's wife suffers from progressive dementia. She is a little over forty, but she no longer recognizes her own husband and needs constant medical care. What to do with it and how to survive it, Henry has no idea. He can only hide - looking for peace and trying to put his thoughts in order.

Henry's past is an important part of the overall story. It is with his help that Firewatch sets you in the right mood and helps to identify yourself with the hero. At first, we read short essays describing episodes from Henry's life, and from time to time we make minor decisions.

Short, unsaid phrases paint vivid pictures in your head. Here is Henry awkwardly flirting with his future wife. Here we are choosing a dog together. Here we dream of children. But the first "episode", hinting at a terrible diagnosis. The essays become more and more disturbing, and the feeling of despair creeps closer and closer.

You can get emotional and shed a tear even before you really start playing.

By the end of the introduction, there is no longer any hero on the other side of the screen. You are Henry. Personally, you climb the creaking steps of the fire tower, with all your heart feeling the desire to hide from insoluble problems, to find a new meaning of existence. And as soon as the generator switch is lowered, a glimpse appears, a beacon in the darkness of our life: Delilah gets in touch via the walkie-talkie.

Endless summer

The girl looks after another sector of the forest, and at the same time for a hero inexperienced in the new profession. She jokes a lot, pokes fun at Henry and is very friendly. However, from the first minutes it becomes clear that humor for her is a protective barrier behind which no less emotions are hidden than those of Henry himself. Perhaps this is what brings them together?

Under Delilah's leadership, we begin our duties. We wander through the forest, disperse teenagers with beer and fireworks, and just chat with a colleague about everything. Almost any event, any subject can be discussed on the radio. Behind the fascinating chatter “about nothing”, the conversations become more and more frank. Delilah opens up to us more and more, and we to her. There are no empty remarks here, every word bit by bit reveals the characters of the characters. After a couple of hours, the brain already refuses to perceive the voice coming from the walkie-talkie as a pre-recorded set of replicas. On the other side is a real live person. Otherwise it can not be.

The developers deliberately made the character of Henry "flexible": choosing the answers in the dialogues, we adjust the image of the character to suit ourselves.

Something about Henry can be gleaned from the annotations of the books he brought with him.

Most of the books are fictional, but sometimes you can find funny references.

The area of ​​the forest entrusted to us is quite large and completely open. At first, it is not very easy to navigate, but after a couple of hours, all the trails and edges become like family.

But through the routine duties of a forester, a thriller gradually begins to seep. Someone cuts the telephone wires, a strange person hangs around near our tower at night, incomprehensible sounds come from the depths of the forest. Gradually, a real threat looms over us and Delilah. The feeling of paranoia is built up gradually and very subtly.

Likewise, flirting with the mood, Firewatch intrigues, captivates... but ends abruptly and isn't very exciting. Yes, and everything becomes clear long before the final. However, by and large, the game has two endings - one draws a line under the history of mysterious incidents in the forest, and the other dots the i in the relationship of the characters. And if the first can really upset, then the second turned out to be strong in its own way.

Firewatch caresses the ear, the eye, and even the soul. In these forests, you want to get lost, just doing your duties as a forester. No puzzles, puzzles and difficulties in general - wander and contemplate. Many will certainly be turned off by this: Firewatch does not do much to use your skill specifically play. Looking around, listening, to some extent even playing a role in dialogues with Delilah - this is here from the heart. But no matter what you do, you will reach the end. Soon enough.

But. But again.

* * *

When I woke up the next morning after beating the game, I felt like I missed Delilah like a real living person. I missed the familiar forest paths and the sunsets over Lake Jonesy. I launched the game and went through it again in one breath to relive all these emotions and sensations. I'm sure it will happen again soon.

Of course, not everyone will be as impressed with Firewatch. Someone does not care about the beauty of the summer forest, someone does not favor overly talkative people, and someone needs tests and more tangible gameplay from games.

But if you are open to new things and love sincere, heartfelt stories, then by no means miss Firewatch.

There is such a game studio - Telltale Games. Perhaps its name will not tell you anything, but also, most likely, you have at least vaguely heard about games Walking Dead, Game of Thrones and The Wolf Among Us. It was these projects that made Telltale Games a famous studio, brought her popularity and money. The games themselves, all three projects, are made in approximately the same genre and style - these are the so-called graphic novels, where several game mechanics are combined, and all together they create an adventure game where the plot and story dominate. In fact, Telltale Games created and then popularized the genre of game-series, where most of the time the player follows the development of the plot, slowly clicking and performing some actions, occasionally joining the game at the most important moments of the story.

One of the main developers of the first game in this series, The Walking Dead, Jack Rodkin and Sean Vanaman, left Telltale Games in 2013-2014 and created their own studio, Campo Santo, and in March 2014 announced the first game, Firewatch. Then it seemed that the "observation tower" would be a project in the survival genre with a good single player company and a well-thought-out plot. At least, such hopes arose at the sight of the first trailers. Initially, the game was supposed to appear in 2015, but then its release was postponed to early 2016, and in February, Firewatch became available for PC (Windows / OS X / Linux) and PlayStation 4.

The game turned out to be completely different from what I personally imagined it (and many others, I think), but what can I say for sure - Firewatch should be played by everyone who is not indifferent to computer games any genre, even though the game turned out to be very controversial. It will be very difficult for me to talk about Firewatch without spoilers, so I will very briefly describe those points that are important for understanding, and then I suggest that you simply decide whether to play or not.

The mention of Telltale Games and the projects of this studio at the beginning of the article was done for a reason. The fact is that Firewatch at its core strongly resembles The Walking Dead and all subsequent games in this format. The basis here is a certain story and narrative, and your task is to closely monitor the course of its development. At the same time, you don’t need to do a lot of actions as such, that is, in the usual sense, this is not so much a game as an interactive, damn beautiful story from the graphic side. But it is presented differently than in The Walking Dead and other similar games.

In Firwatch, you play as a very specific person, Henry, a brief history his life the game will kindly tell you at the very beginning. So it turns out that the main character gets a job as an observer in the Shoshone National Forest, Wyoming, USA. The plot develops mainly due to communication on the radio with the boss girl Delilah. The characters get to know each other, get to know each other and then spend the whole game together, keeping in touch via the radio. The game is played in the first person, in some moments you can choose one of several answers when communicating with Delilah, and in the future the game will take them into account. The plot develops slowly at first, but then faster and faster. There were supposed to be descriptions of the plot points, but if I add them, I will spoil the impression of the game for you, so let's move on.

The developers have done their best to ensure that the player can completely immerse themselves in the story they invented and listen, read and watch it with wide eyes. To do this, Firewatch has absolutely amazing graphics and gorgeous music. Both components are top notch.

Game made on Unity engine fifth version, so in theory it can be ported to mobile Operating Systems. However, the quality of the picture in Firewatch is not due to the steepness of the game engine, the resolution of textures or the detail of objects, not at all. The Campo Santo designers were able to draw and embody insanely beautiful landscapes, day and night changes, lighting and many tiny details in the game. Being in the woods of Wyoming, you can take screenshots every second, and literally any screenshot of nature is good to immediately print and put in a frame or on your desktop as “wallpaper”. At some moments of the game, you forget what's next and what to do, you just want to stop and look at all this beauty around. In this regard, Firewatch is a great example of how important game design is, not photorealistic graphics, but the right combination of all the components that make the picture in the game.

Sound is also excellent. The rustle of leaves, the wind, the sounds of fireworks, the crumpling grass underfoot are done perfectly. Musical accompaniment just amazing. The music for the game was written by composer Chris Remo, who has been creating soundtracks for games since 2009.

As you can see, I haven't written much about game mechanics, gameplay and other things that are usually talked about when describing games. There are two reasons. First, in Firewatch, all this is really not enough, this game is a story, where you are assigned for the most part the role of a spectator and an observer. The second is that it will not be possible to briefly tell the plot, leaving behind the most interesting moments, because the game is short. And this, by the way, is another argument in favor of buying the game.

To complete Firewatch, you will need 3-5 hours, no more. But, believe me, this game will definitely not leave you indifferent. On Steam, the toy costs 420 rubles, and, in my opinion, it fully pays for this money.

P.S. If you're thinking, while playing Firewatch, "This is the style of a survival game," then I've got good news for you. There is a project called "The Long Dark", and this game is similar in style to Firewatch, while being a harsh survival simulator. I'll try to talk about it next weekend.

In this article, we will discuss a bit about the plot of Firewatch and its ending.

It's actually really sad that after building up such a close bond between Delilah and Henry, the two characters never meet at the end of the game. Hell, we can't even see their faces! It can be assumed that such an intriguing ending will delight us with the continuation of the game, but the story seems to be over. You can put a bold point, and this is a fact.

The story begins with the protagonist named Henry finding two teenage girls skinny-dipping in a lake and setting off fireworks. Soon their tent is torn apart, things are lying around. There are no girls, where could they have gone? A strange signal is heard on the shore of the lake. Following the sound, Henry finds a walkie-talkie, when he suddenly receives a serious blow to the head and faints.

Soon, Henry stumbles upon a small camp of scientists, where all the actions of Delilah and our hero are described in stages. Was someone following them? Have they been experimented on? Leaving this place, literally 300 meters away, we see that someone is setting it on fire. Someone reports that he has a tape of the conversation between Delilah and Henry, edited so that they wanted to hide the girls' story. They are being blackmailed.

In the end (SPOILER ATTENTION!!!) we learn that this was all done by a distraught father who accidentally killed his child and then decided to simply disappear into the woods of Wyoming. Out of nowhere, teenage girls appeared who just left the place. Further, Delilah and Henry are evacuated from here by helicopter. By the way, if you read our article about the endings of the game, you may know that Henry may even stay in the burning forest.

At the end of the game, we get a short and awkward farewell of the characters to each other over the walkie-talkie. And it's all???

On the other hand, the story of the game actually turned out to be intriguing. She kept me personally in suspense until the very end. But when it turned out that Ned caused the death of his son, all dreams were shattered. Everything began to look somehow cheap in my eyes. The whole final act of the game does not create a feeling of some kind of winning. You can’t jump out of a chair (from an armchair) and exclaim something like: “Hurrah! I won!". This is the ending (and both), which leaves a huge number of questions after itself, rather than giving definite answers. Something small and disappointing.

As I moved towards the extraction point, I was convinced that at least something else was bound to happen. Something that will throw a new light on the events taking place here, turn history around - but it never came to that.

Do not misunderstand me. I enjoyed my time playing Firewatch. But in my opinion, the writers were able to create this huge intriguing story, and then just ruined everything with a sharp and too straightforward ending. What do you think, did the story turn out to deserve a 10/10 rating?