A Gut Punch You'll Never Regret

TLDR: Firewatch is a lot of things: It's beautiful, tense, and heartbreaking, all rolled into one. I cannot recommend this game more highly, if you want a story that opens you up to all of the feels and then lets you experience them in an idyllic natural environment.

Firewatch is a beautiful walking simulator. You take on the role of a fire lookout in the Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming. You can explore your environment more or less freely (certain areas are blocked off until you get the right equipment), with gorgeous background music in key spots. You get assignments/missions from your contact over the radio, and as you complete them, the story reveals itself. It's not a long game; I think that I completed my playthrough in ~8 hours.

One of the game's best features is how fluidly it shifts genre on you. In the beginning, it is just a walking simulator in a beautifully rendered outdoor environment. It very quickly turns into a tense mystery that has your character (and maybe you!) looking over your shoulder and questioning your own sanity, except while you're distracted by exploring that same beautiful environment. I won't say any more to avoid spoiling it, but the story just gets better and better the more you play it.

I didn't expect Firewatch to be as emotionally deep as it was. It is, in part, a meditation on love and grief, and it shows its colors in the very beginning: Its first ten minutes felt like the first few minutes of the movie "Up." Throughout the story, it will dip into your tragic backstory unexpectedly, gradually building up to a climax that hit me like a ton of bricks. Ooof. I admire a game that can make me feel emotions like this. Firewatch is as much literature as game, as far as I'm concerned.

Don't play it if you're looking for a platformer; that's not this. This is a piece of art. The closest game I've ever encountered to it is "What Remains of Edith Finch," but I strongly prefer Firewatch. Firewatch is more grounded and satisfying.

It has some strong language and discussion of adult topics; don't play with young kids around, if you care about that sort of thing. I played it with my teenage son, and it ended up sparking some powerful conversations between us. But also, I may have skipped over a couple of dialog choices before he could see them...

(For the record: I played it on a PS5. It worked great. I don't think this is a performance intensive game.)