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Firewatch | Spoiler Discussion

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OT
 

JeffGrubb

Member
I want to say that I just think you should play it yourselves. It's worth it. So if you're here out of curiosity and haven't played it, try to go and do so first.
 

Jake

Member
I want to say that I just think you should play it yourselves. It's worth it. So if you're here out of curiosity and haven't played it, try to go and do so first.

Yes, seconding the above. You'll be happier sticking to the OT and reviews until you've played through!

It comes out tomorrow btw - Tuesday, Feb 9th.

PC comes out sometime in the morning Pacific time (11am is the target). PS4 comes out hopefully near then, but it will be some time inside Sony's release window.
 

FelipeMGM

Member
Yes, seconding the above. You'll be happier sticking to the OT and reviews until you've played through!

It comes out tomorrow btw - Tuesday, Feb 9th.

PC comes out sometime in the morning Pacific time (11am is the target). PS4 comes out hopefully near then, but it will be some time inside Sony's release window.

Yeah, but I feel this was created early because some of us already played, Gaf has some reviewers.

I cant wait to talk about it, just waiting for the embargo to lift in 1 and a half hour
 
Yeah, but I feel this was created early because some of already played, Gaf has some reviewers.

I cant wait to talk about it, just waiting for the embargo to lift in 1 and a half hour
Same. I have my impressions ready to post, and just dying to to talk about this
 

Nico_D

Member
Ok, so the same question here. Any horror/supernatural elements in the game?

I'm really interested in this but if it got anything supernatural, it's not for me.
 

Mdk7

Member
Oh i found
that place on the very last day, with the fire going on, and when i opened the boiler door the little dude jumped at me
 

revyb

Neo Member
Does the game always end with
Delilah going off and encouraging Henry to return to Julia? I played through twice with very different choices and actions, hoping to trigger at least a different conversation, but it ended up in the same place both times....
 
Oh i found
that place on the very last day, with the fire going on, and when i opened the boiler door the little dude jumped at me

Okay then, there is a second jump scare with the Racoon.
If you investigate a little offshoot in the area of the teens beer/fireworks, you can find the racoon just sitting on a rock. When you approach (at lest the way I did it on my first playthrough) Delilah will scream PEARS, PAIRS, PARES! which scared the shit out of me. Her and her crossword addiction.

Does the game always end with
Delilah going off and encouraging Henry to return to Julia? I played through twice with very different choices and actions, hoping to trigger at least a different conversation, but it ended up in the same place both times....

My second time no
since that whole playthrough I never once mentioned that Jules was sick, so she thought Jules was just an Ex-wife and didn't encourage me to go back to Jules.
 
Okay, I found the game satisfying but also the final reveal was kind of disappointing. At first I thought they were doing a Shutter Island kind of set-up, some kind of therapy or something to help with his coping with his wife. Then of course there was the conspiracy/experiment angle. And the conversation Delilah had early in the game that you could listen in and not comment.

But it turned out to be a small intimate finale.

But I feel like I missed something. I mean, there has to be something more to the story, right? The mysterious station, the high tech gear, the reports about how much Henry and Delilah can be manipulated. Those things don't fit in with the simple story of Ned and his son and all that. One guy set all that up?
 
I'm in the same boat, it feels like there is one secret location that would make the story fit together. Thought I found it, instead it was the hidden area about Ron and Dave.
 
But I feel like I missed something. I mean, there has to be something more to the story, right? The mysterious station, the high tech gear, the reports about how much Henry and Delilah can be manipulated. Those things don't fit in with the simple story of Ned and his son and all that. One guy set all that up?

There are a couple things that tie those things together, but I don't really want to say more until I see how it's received by the larger audience in terms of people figuring everything out.
 

Kensuke

Member
I didn't like Firewatch. I thought the story was manipulative instead of the clever misdirection that is being described in some reviews. There are a couple of okay red herrings (missing girls), but I thought the research facility was just pretty bad.
After the ending it seems the explanation is that Ned planted his manuscripts there for H to find, making it look like H and D were being researched. Then he burned the facility down to make them even more nervous and as a way to erase the evidence. It's never explained however why 1. the research facility is not on the map, 2. why D doesn't know anything about it, 3. why scientists would leave expensive research equipment unsupervised there. It's obvious Campo used the research facility as one of the elements to make the player think it was going the horror game route, but the real explanation for it all just doesn't make sense.

The Delilah mysterious convo red herring was also kind of bullshit. It's meant to make D untrustworthy (which is good), but it's done in a cheap way imo.

Overall I'd say Firewatch is unsubstantial. I already didn't like the way the story opens. It's too condensed into a bullet point summary of Henry's life for me to really get invested. Julia getting Alzheimer didn't do anything for me, simply because I just don't know this woman.

The banter between H and D is better and it's the strongest point of the game. It's well written, though not as funny as I would like. The problem is that the game is just too short, leaving what feels like large blanks the player is supposed to fill in. Like how the game skips about 20 days two times, is the player supposed to assume their relationship is developing in the meantime? The ending kind of shows just how unsubstantial their actual relationship was. That's good, because it's realistic, but also bad because it underlines that their time together wasn't all that special in the end.
 
Kinda disappointed that we could not see more of H and D relationship. It felt like wasted opportunity to me at least.
And then the plot point also felt...forced? It feels like this is something I can't believe. It was like watching an X Files episode when you expect a normal romp of characters and stuff. Oh and that pay off was awful, how do you expect me to believe that a hermit could wiz up so much tech like that.

Unless there is more! maybe.
I enjoyed what I gotten in the end anyway.
 
Kinda disappointed that we could not see more of H and D relationship. It felt like wasted opportunity to me at least.
And then the plot point also felt...forced? It feels like this is something I can't believe. It was like watching an X Files episode when you expect a normal romp of characters and stuff. Oh and that pay off was awful, how do you expect me to believe that a hermit could wiz up so much tech like that.

Unless there is more! maybe.
I enjoyed what I gotten in the end anyway.
Actually I watched the Always Funny discussion and there's a reason for that stuff to be there
 

old

Member
Fealt let down by the "reveal". Lack of payoff for what amounted to Map and Compass Simulator 2016.
 
Yeah. The game is very much just okay. I liked it. But it didn't really sink its hooks into me. I'm not going to be thinking about my time with Firewatch a few years from now. It was a good way to spend a day, but I don't feel like it was a nice and neat complete little package.

Maybe there's more to explore and find that gives the world a little more flavor, but even what is there doesn't amount to much. They pretty much take you all around the entire map throughout the game anyway, so it's not like there's much reason to explore.
 

Hektor

Member
Crossposting from the other thread, it's probably better off here:

Overalll, i liked the first half a lot more than the second half.

For one thing, the atmosphere was just straight up better, because you were exploring and saw new things and all, when the second part mostly consistet of revisiting already known places.

Then there is the story, which started off as something very personal which i really liked. The weird lost like social experiment stuff was interesting and thrilling but the reveleation at the ending just left me not feeling anything. A guy i've never seen killed another guy i've never seen. I dunno. didn't really got to know either of those two really.

I think the game would've been a lot better if it would've focused more on the personal part of the story. With his women suffering dementia, him trying to get away, meeting that other women from the other watchtower, bantering and flirting. That was just a lot more interesting, especially because the characterinteraction between the two was really good and authentic, especially so when the fire started and you stood there in the night, flirting a bit with her and all. That was really cool.

Overall i don't regret buying nor playing this game, but i would'nt recommend it wholeheartedly either. It could've been something truly special but instead it was just "good"
 

TraBuch

Banned
Really liked the game, would've liked it more if the entire thing was about
Henry running away from his problems and meeting another woman and starting to be happy for the first time in a long time only to realize he can't just keep running away. Or he just goes with it. Whatever you want, I guess. Let's just say that I think the " conspiracy" aspect added nothing and actually took away from the game's strength.
 
Watched lirik playing. The graphics and animations were good, but the story was meh. I was hooked at first. I really like the idea until the conspiracy/Ned stuff.
 

chris121580

Member
I liked the game a lot especially not knowing what to expect when going in. The writing was phenomenal and both Henry and Delilah were incredibly likable. I was hoping to get a Delilah selfie in the credits...Henry's was hilarious because I had described him as having a big beard.

The mystery was really interesting and kept me intrigued the whole way through. I also thought we might get a Shutter Island type situation but that wasn't the case. I feel like this game was about 2 people who developed a good relationship and could relate to one another in a summer where Henry, more than anyone, needed that. Great game
 
I have a question. I'm outside the cave and found the little fort. How am I supposed to go back to the cave? I've been stuck for a good 30 minutes.
 

Goreomedy

Console Market Analyst
Well, that was a quick play.

I liked the characters and atmosphere, so it was disappointing that the story goes no where terribly interesting.

Also, can people stop using early onset dementia to wring sympathy out of an audience? It's cheap.
 
N

Noray

Unconfirmed Member
Okay, I found the game satisfying but also the final reveal was kind of disappointing. At first I thought they were doing a Shutter Island kind of set-up, some kind of therapy or something to help with his coping with his wife.

dude that is literally EXACTLY what I thought, only I thought Henry was actually Ned, who'd had some sort of disassociation disorder as a result of Bryan's death, and I was thinking Delilah was trying to get him to confront himself, and in my mind I made the Shutter Island connection too. Uncanny.

Anyway all the red herrings and paranoia felt totally out of place by the end. Like the story ACTUALLY wants to be about Henry's sense of guilt, and Ned's sense of guilt (he's kind of like Henry taken to an extreme, just running away from his problems, but also he has PTSD so??). All the while I assumed there was at least SOME unreliable narrator stuff going on, but there wasn't. So really, the vast majority of the story is really just putting you on the wrong foot until the other shoe drops way, WAY too late in the game, and the conclusion just feels super rushed. It's disappointing. I like what it does there at the end, and I think Henry and Delilah are great, fantastic characters, but the actual plot mechanics are super wonky and most of the story just feels like meaningless misdirection when you consider them in light of the game's themes of guilt and repression.
 

Goreomedy

Console Market Analyst
I have a question. I'm outside the cave and found the little fort. How am I supposed to go back to the cave? I've been stuck for a good 30 minutes.
Make sure you pick up all the items in the kids hideout... If you have "it", look for cracks in rocks walls.
 

careksims

Member
I have to agree with many here that the payoff was just... eeeeh..... I was expecting something really big. All this time I was thinking: Is the government involved? UFOs!? A monster?! Oh, I wish it was :(
 

hank_tree

Member
I have a question. I'm outside the cave and found the little fort. How am I supposed to go back to the cave? I've been stuck for a good 30 minutes.


You don't go back into the cave the way you came out. You need to go past the fort and climb down the cliff. Took me a while to find the part of the rock to use your pitons on.
 
I just don't understand why one man would do so many odd things cutting power cables knocking Henry out recording audio making it sound like they did bad things and then ultimately leading Henry to the key to the cave to discover the dead body it just doesn't add up to me and the more I think about the game the more I just feel the story falls apart in the end
 
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