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Firewatch Review Thread

LifEndz

LifEndz

Member
Amazing scores! I have a four day weekend this weekend and I'm going to enjoy spending time in this. Totally snuck up on me and didn't expect to be so interested, but it appears to be right up my alley.

Scared to read reviews for fear of spoilers. Is performance on PS4 really bad as was hinted in the OT?
 
V

Venom Fox

Banned
Shame about the tech issues on PS4. I'll still grab it anyway as it's one of my most anticipated games this year.

Devs better patch it fast though as usually I'd refuse to buy a game with issues such as stuttering and laggy contextual prompts that could be missed.

icespide said:
bummer to hear about the PS4 issues, I'll wait for a patch or sale.

also: what the hell is this game?
Click to expand...
Go and take a look at the OP of the OT.
 
8

8 X 11 Printer Paper

Member
Venom Fox said:
Shame about the tech issues on PS4. I'll still grab it anyway as it's one of my most anticipated games this year.

Devs better patch it fast though as usually I'd refuse to buy a game with issues such as stuttering and laggy contextual prompts that could be missed.


Go and take a look at the OP of the OT.
Click to expand...

The frame drops are quite random, or at least it was for me during my two playthroughs on the PS4. It could go ten minutes with steady FPS and then get hit by multiple drops (quite low single digits would be my guess, but no way for me to be sure) in a row, while they were short 2-4 seconds it did hurt any immersion I was experiencing at the time.
 
S

slackern1nja

Banned
Poster#1 said:
Is it safe to pick up the PC version?
Click to expand...

Performs well for most part. Minor stuttering in a few places. Doesn't really impact the gameplay, but it's perceptible. Hopefully it should get patched. There was a ~220mb update a couple of days back. Didn't change much. But IMHO not a deal-breaker by any means. Specs of the machine I played it on: i5 3470 (3.2GHz), GTX 980Ti, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD, Windows 10, Asus 4K display.
 
D

digitalrelic

Banned
8 X 11 Printer Paper said:
The frame drops are quite random, or at least it was for me during my two playthroughs on the PS4. It could go ten minutes with steady FPS and then get hit by multiple drops (quite low single digits would be my guess, but no way for me to be sure) in a row, while they were short 2-4 seconds it did hurt any immersion I was experiencing at the time.
Click to expand...

Sounds like something that could hopefully be fixed by a patch. Maybe a day one patch?
 
Acquiescence

Acquiescence

Member
So the game stutters every time it saves, which is every few minutes... yeah, that's kind of a deal-breaker. Fingers crossed for an incoming patch.
 
M

Mattenth

Member
I'm impressed it's holding 80+ even with the performance issues. Wonder what it would have gotten if it didn't have them.
 
TheAssist

TheAssist

Member
DOWN said:
Not affiliated with the site, but I always liked seeing the OpenCritic visual layout so here's their updating list http://opencritic.com/game/2129/firewatch

0RrLJTP.png

zxP9Zxrl.png
Click to expand...

So, if your game is a 8.5 you are already in the yellow? Yeah that makes sense....
 
diablos991

diablos991

Can’t stump the diablos
The wife and I will be playing this one tomorrow! Good to see such positive reviews.

My PC and Steam Link are ready for an adventure!
 
C

Chris R

Member
Still having a blast with the Witness, but after I finish that I might grab this. Nice to see positive reviews, still waiting on a Quick Look I think to make a final decision.
 
V

Venom Fox

Banned
8 X 11 Printer Paper said:
The frame drops are quite random, or at least it was for me during my two playthroughs on the PS4. It could go ten minutes with steady FPS and then get hit by multiple drops (quite low single digits would be my guess, but no way for me to be sure) in a row, while they were short 2-4 seconds it did hurt any immersion I was experiencing at the time.
Click to expand...
Hopefully it gets patched quickly, it's a real shame. All this talk of issues is really killing the hype on Gaf and tbh word of mouth is probably what's going to carry this games sales, so they really should have just delayed a month or so.

Still, I'm going to buy it and I'll enjoy it.
 
Barry Burton

Barry Burton

Member
PS4 performance has me a bit concerned, but I'm generally pretty tolerant of stuttering unless it becomes unplayable and really hurts the experience.

It's one of my most-wanted games, so I don't see myself holding off on it very long for a potential patch. I figure I'll get it tomorrow regardless, and if the performance problems seem like they're really hindering my enjoyment of the game, I may opt to put it down until it gets patched.
 
breakfuss

breakfuss

Member
I said goddamn at these reviews! Congrats to the devs. Game definitely looks awesome. Too bad it's only 5 trophies though. ~$4/trophy and I just can't support that!!

/s goddamn it..../S!!!
 
D

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
thuway said:
Sounds like a patch should be in order. That souds like a combination of bugs and streaming issues.
Click to expand...
It's a Unity game. It won't and cannot be fixed. I'm positive of that. Not a single console Unity game with launch performance issues has been fixed with a patch.
 
DOWN

DOWN

Banned
TheAssist said:
So, if your game is a 8.5 you are already in the yellow? Yeah that makes sense....
Click to expand...

? 8.5 is very green and look at the top of the scale which is the right end, not the left of each one. They end on the relative color as to where they are from 1-10
 
diablos991

diablos991

Can’t stump the diablos
breakfuss said:
I said goddamn at these reviews! Congrats to the devs. Game definitely looks awesome. Too bad it's only 5 trophies though. ~$4/trophy and I just can't support that!!
Click to expand...

Wtf? Never heard of that metric of $ per trophy.
Are trophies really that important to people?
 
T

tuxfool

Banned
bombshell said:
Why is that engine used? Ease of development compared to other engines?
Click to expand...

Yup. Though it should hopefully be clear to other developers that if they're going to be making technically complex games they shouldn't be using Unity (if they can avoid it).
 
M

Morts

Member
dark10x said:
It's a Unity game. It won't and cannot be fixed. I'm positive of that. Not a single console Unity game with launch performance issues has been fixed with a patch.
Click to expand...

That is disappointing if correct. I'll still be buying it on PS4 as I doubt I'll be upgrading my PC anytime soon. It's too bad I'm going into bracing for tech issues though.
 
C

cabel

Member
FWIW, we're currently talking to both Sony and Unity and we're all working hard to to optimize performance of Firewatch on PS4.

It's tricky, because it really requires all three partners working together to improve — it's not something we can tackle on our own, unlike a game bug — but we'll definitely continue to patch all platforms with every content and performance fix we can over time!

To summarize: we're on it. :)

(I've played through the game multiple times on a PlayStation 4 and enjoyed it thoroughly! But I'm not a PC gamer so…)
 
C

Cotrip

Member
For people looking forward the PS4 version, turn the autosave off.

If your game freezes on the loading screen and the game autosave it, it's likely that you won't be able to continue the next objective. (happened to me)
 
J

JP

Member
Fantastic, this seems to be perfect for me/

Have there been any performance analysis videos of the PS4 version yet?
 
M

Morts

Member
cabel said:
FWIW, we're currently talking to both Sony and Unity and we're all working hard to to optimize performance of Firewatch on PS4.

It's tricky, because it really requires all three partners working together to improve — it's not something we can tackle on our own, unlike a game bug — but we'll definitely continue to patch all platforms with every content and performance fix we can over time!

To summarize: we're on it. :)

(I've played through the game multiple times on a PlayStation 4 and enjoyed it thoroughly! But I'm not a PC gamer so…)
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting! I'm already sold, but it's great to know it's being worked on.
 
Barry Burton

Barry Burton

Member
Cotrip said:
For people looking forward the PS4 version, turn the autosave off.

If your game freezes on the loading screen and the game autosave it, it's likely that you won't be able to continue the next objective. (happened to me)
Click to expand...
Good to know.

Does it have a manual save option (or in-game save locations)?
 
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