Firewatch (Xbox One)

This is the start of the 2018 games, the following reviews could feature in the end of year review.

Firewatch released in 2016 and on Xbox One later on that year. It was developed by Campo Santo, and it was their first project. It's a mystery adventure game, but ultimately a walking simulator.

It starts out with a small text story, allowing you to make some small changes. It tells the story of your character and how he met his wife. As the story goes on, we learn his wife has Alzheimer's, and how she has moved out to live with her parents. It's an emotional story and at this point we know neither of these characters.

After Henry's wife moves back in with her parents, he decides to take up a job in the wilderness as a fire lookout. It's set in 1988, and the beautiful cartoon graphics are some of the best I've seen. Henry is completely alone, there are other fire watchers out there, but you never come across them, just some notes they leave each other in the lock boxes. You do have regular contact with one other  lookout, Delilah. She basically shows you the ropes and guides you through your daily tasks.

A huge part of the game is the conversations with Delilah. You talk to each other using walkie talkies, she speaks to you from her tower, while you're out doing your tasks she gives you. We have never seen Delilah or know her previous, these are two people who are talking for the first time. We watch the relationship build, and it's the best part of the game. The voice acting from both Rich Sommer and Cissy Jones, potentially the best voice acting I've witnessed. The chemistry between the two lookouts is fantastic. You the option whether to respond to most conversations and what you want to say, proving this isn't just a walking simulator. The game does a fantastic job of balancing emotion, humour and eeriness, the way Henry just shuts down when Delilah asks about his wife right after they were taking funny little digs at each other.  The sarcastic jokes, interesting conversations and fearful consequences of their choices make every conversation worth listening to.

You're armed only with a map and a compass, the map marks your location, so you always know where you are, but you always have to get your map out to see where you are. You also have rope, allowing you to climb up and down high surfaces. You have free reign to explore and you want to because the forest is so beautiful. At the same time you don't, as you want to do your tasks and see what happening next.

You never see other people, the only time you do, they're pretty far away and you're unable to see their faces. You come across two drunk girls, littering and skinny-dipping, breaking the rules and causing fire hazards by setting off fireworks. Will you break their stereo? Trash their campsite? It's up to you. Your actions will have consequences. Things take a turn for the worse as you find strange equipment, and that your conversations with Delilah have been recorded. That's why you get choice dialogue, it may come back to haunt. It starts to get creepy, your conversations are being listened to, personal information about you and Delilah is found on notepads, a strange fenced off area, tracking devices, it becomes quite the mystery.

Walking simulators aren't the most exciting genre, but they're story based, so a strong story helps make a good game. This is how I'd describe Firewatch; it's the king of walking sims. If you've never played it, you really need to. The worst thing about it is its length, but prolonging the story would most likely weaken. Campo Santo's first project couldn't have gone any better, they made themselves noticed, and any game the develop now I'll be keeping an eye on.

8.6/10