Here, our protagonist, Henry, meets Jules, a stranger-turned-wife. Meanwhile, you select dialogue options to participate in conversations across different times. The game begins like Pixar's Up, where you get fleeting snapshots of a relationship over a span of time. I can't honestly say a game's ending has ever left me feeling that way. As the game’s credits rolled down, I began to sympathize for the poor soul tasked with developing my photos which range from shots of my adopted turtle to possibly self-incriminating evidence. Who could ever forget Link's selfie attempts mashed against the bumps, and grooves of Kanye West's Black Skinhead? The game hands you a disposable Kodak-looking camera mid-way, and surprisingly, it became something I regularly used. The last time I was this amused by having a usable camera in a game was The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD. Someone rushing straight through the main story could probably wind it all up in around three hours, while someone obsessed with finding all of the game’s secrets - and there are many - might double my playtime, if only because they can’t fast travel around the map.Eep in Wyoming forests, “The Flapjack Fire”, rages on as I try to line up the perfect picture of a dead elk. That was by running most places, exploring the more obvious “secret” locations for story stuff and making sure I picked up every empty beer can I came across. I finished Firewatch in around four hours. This takes a bit of the wind out Firewatch once the beauty and gimmicks wear off, making you feel more like a set of eyeballs being herded through a (gorgeous) animated comic book than a player in control of an experience where your movement and actions around such a seemingly vast space actually count for anything. The constant travel becomes a bit of a drag, though, even with the conversations going on to divert you from the trudge. The game is divided into “days” which open and close to hit certain story beats, and, smartly, a lot of missions are automatically cut short by the game to save you going everywhere in real-time. You’ve got a run button to make things go by a little faster. The setting of a vast national park and the fact you’ve got a map and compass might suggest a place that you can really explore and get lost in, but in truth Firewatch is little more than a series of corridors pointing towards objectives and areas of interest, each one frustratingly walled in by rocks and devoid of any real sense of openness or space. The relationship between the two is as raw and real as their voice acting is fantastic (Hank is played by Mad Men’s Rich Sommer, while Delilah is voiced by veteran games actor Cissy Jones). For a game where you rarely see anyone’s face, Firewatch is dripping with character. That isolation is only physical, though, because you’ve always got a walkie-talkie with you, which is used to communicate with Delilah, the woman in the watch tower next to yours. ![]() It’s just you, your fat fingers and the Great American Wilderness. Aside from a few very brief (and distant) confrontations you are entirely alone throughout Firewatch. ![]() ![]() Which sounds terrible! And yet, your movement in Firewatch is simply a means of giving the story space to play out. You talk, and sometimes you’ll need to climb up or down something, and very occasionally there’ll be a door to open or a tree to cut down, but for 95 per cent of your time interacting with a controller or mouse in Firewatch, you’re doing nothing but moving through an empty landscape. If you want to strip it back, all you really do in Firewatch is run around the woods. The map looks vast and impressive, but the game’s world is surprisingly linear. The map looks vast and impressive, but the game’s world is surprisingly linear
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