Firewatch

2024-02-03
Firewatch is an odd duck. You have great writing, incredible voice acting, competent enough mechanics, and an incredibly underwhelming plot/ending and where that lands on the quality spectrum I imagine is greatly a matter of personal taste. For me though I have to give it a lot of credit because the rapport between the player character, Hank, and your only other point of contact, a woman on the radio, Delilah, is so, so good and so, so well delivered by the voice actors that I was engaged the entire time. Sure it's a gorgeous game and does a great job capturing the beauty of Wyoming (or wherever it is) but I really mostly was just interested in the story. It's sad then that the plot is so underwhelming. It builds up tension around some sort of conspiracy and it just unravels as an incredibly mundane thing. It doesn't help that at the same time that happens the tenuous relationship you've established with Delilah also unravels as her true character, which was deftly previously alluded to, is revealed and she leaves with little more than a goodbye.

It's a credit to the game that it bummed me out so much at the end. It's a game that captures the coming together of two lonely, flawed people and how it fizzles out as the real life inevitably pulls people in opposite directions. 2/10