Firewatch by Campo Santo - Now available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and PlayStation 4
Release Date
February 4th on Windows, Mac, Linux, and PS4.
What is Firewatch?
Firewatch is a mystery set in the Wyoming wilderness, where your only emotional lifeline is the person on the other end of a handheld radio.
In Firewatch you play as a man named Henry who has retreated from his messy life to work as a fire lookout in the Wyoming wilderness. Perched high atop a mountain, it’s your job to look for smoke and keep the wilderness safe. An especially hot, dry summer has everyone on edge. Your supervisor, a woman named Delilah, is available to you at all times over a small, handheld radio and is your only contact with the world you've left behind.
But when something strange draws you out of your lookout tower and into the world, you’ll explore a wild and unknown environment, facing questions and making interpersonal choices that can build or destroy the only meaningful relationship you have.
Comments
I must admit, I'm rather shocked by the news. @Jake has been with Telltale almost right from the beginning, and Sean has already written for Tales of Monkey Island. And of course, they are the main writers behind The Walking Dead.
says IGN. And that sounds very final.
Then again, it's not like Telltale doesn't have real creative talent left. So don't worry TOO much.
They couldn't find a worse time to leave now when Season Two is just around the corner...
It is not good news indeed, sure the other writers are good in there own right, but those two men made Walking Dead and a lot of Telltale games, this will in someway affect Wolf Among Us and Season 2 is negative ways, just how negative I don't know, I do wonder why they left even though I am sure we will never know.
Well, that's.... some pretty shocking news. Especially now, given that Season 2 is nearing. This may or may not affect their upcoming titles in a bad way. It's too early to tell exactly how teir departure will affect the rest of the team, but I'm still feeling confident.
The Wolf among Us was always in development while Sean and Jake were busy working on TWD. I think Mike Stemmle is the lead designer for TWaU.
So the two would have never had a decisive influence on the "Fables game" anyway. TWD Season 2 however, I doubt that Telltale would have put other people in charge for that project if they did not have to.
If there were ever a time when we need puzzlebox or Kevin or another staff member to weigh in...
I guess they did not want to be associated with a company that releases shoddy coding work (TWD Vita and a multitude of bugs in other versions) and who furthermore insult their customers by giving them the silent treatment when issues are brought up (TWD Vita).
TWD is great from a story perspective, but from a technical perspective many of the versions on different platforms are very poor indeed.
I wish these guys the best in future endeavours. Telltale, well let's hear about a Vita patch.
I do want to know why, I know very well that it does not matter but it would be nice to hear something instead of what someone like AMC always says, they always say it was 'creative differences' and they drop it, I personally thought those two guys were amazing writers and have to wonder why they left while Telltale is still in the spotlight.
Hey Everyone,
Jake and Sean are indeed off doing their own new thing, and we couldn't be more excited for them (in fact, I was just having lunch with Jake today!) The simple answer is that they had been here a long time, and Telltale is focused on doing one thing amazingly well (episodic story games). They wanted to explore some other directions and I think we'll all be impressed when we see what they are up to!
Any way, it was sad to see them go, but they'll always be members of the Telltale family!
Kevin
Oh cool, I "don't have permission" to edit my own opening post.
Congratulations Sean and Jake! I'm excited to see what Campo Studio comes up with.
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I edited it for you to change the BBcode to markdown.
Still no information if this will affect The Walking Dead? I wish it didn't have to be in the middle of the production of a series I care about -- we all care about.
I like the logo. The skull is a subtle touch.
I know, it just scares me that there vision my be different to whoever takes over the season, conflicting ideas is not great.
I wouldn't worry. If you look at Telltale's history, their seasons have been handed off to different people, but they remained excellent.
Sam & Max Season One was led by Brendan Q. Ferguson and Dave Grossman, then Dave Grossman handed off duties of co-project leader to Chuck Jordan, who was the co-project leader of Season Two and project leader of Season Three.
In fact, it's pretty much unanimously agreed upon that Season Two and Three of Sam & Max vastly improved upon Season One.
Telltale has an excellent staff of writers and game designers, with years of experience. The game will be in good hands, regardless of who leads the next game.
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Wow, I didn't notice that. That's very cool.
I wish the best for them, nice to see they'll still be making games.
Though I am admittedly a little worried about changes to season 2, I'll try to stay optimistic.
I've been in contact with the so-called Campo Santo Games the past hour. I actually managed to get into a conversation with Sean; I throwed a couple of question at him regarding Season Two.
Q: Will your absence affect the progress on the game?
A: I don't think so. Nick Breckon is the lead writer on Season 2 and we have all the faith in the world in him (we hired him). We also helped with initial story development before parting ways. I'm gonna buy it day one.
OP edits will become available soon, and edit time limits on comments will go away.
Jake was like the last pillar of the old Telltale Games. This feels very LucasArts circa 2004. The old games & audience are abandoned for walking dead, telltales Star Wars in the quest for profit. Commercial realities indeed.
Kevin, are you guys working on a patch to fix the crazy amount of stuttering in the Vita version of TWD?
Since there's been no responses in the appropriate topics I have to ask here.
Telltale should work on communication. Leaving customers hanging with issues and a silent treatment is not cool.
I see your point. But I believe you exaggerate a lot. Especially with the LAEC/Star Wars - Telltale/TWD comparison... you can bring that up again when they've reached Season 42.
At the time, we don't even know if TWD will eventually have as many Seasons as Sam & Max. Just like the vampire craze, the zombie craze might not be without some kind of expiration date.
Good grief. Could that announcement have been written in a more pretentious or annoying manner?
In any event, I'm glad to see a new (adventure game?) studio emerge. I don't like the idea of Telltale being one of the only major players developing these kinds of games.
I guess we'll just have to see how the new studio does when they don't have a hugely successful tv show/comic to base a game on. I wonder if all of their games from now on will be marketed with "from the creators of Walking Dead" above the title.
Well, I certainly learned a few words!
Cut the man some slack. Such an opening blog post is insanely hard to write. And there's never a real 'reason' to write one, never real 'material' to go on when the only thing you want to communicate is: Here we are. More next year.
That would require lots of legal leniency from their former employer, don't you think?
It doesn't really make a difference whether you lend a franchise from the movie, TV, book or comic world or if you have established one original IP followed by dozens of sequels. The chance for achieving actual originality is far greater if you don't base your work on anything preexisting. Also, if you don't work towards sequels, the chance for closure in your story is much greater: you start to tell stories with a beginning, a middle and an end again, something we sorely miss in the video game world today.
The customer however naturally reaches for experiences similar to good ones he had in the past. Getting him or her into a completely new story, a new genre in an edgy new art style from - god forbid! - an entirely new developer, that takes a good chunk of luck.
Good to hear the parting wasn't on bad terms. After the debacle with Frank Darabont and AMC, I really, really, really didn't want to see the same thing happen to my favourite video game series.
Hey guys!
Yep, we all miss Sean and Jake. Those are some seriously brilliant guys and I expect to be blown away by whatever they release.
Also, I think you guys are gonna be pretty surprised by season 2. Sean and Jake were hugely involved with crafting the season story, and we have some amazing writers this season as well, including Nick Breckon (who Sean personally vouched for).
Plus, I am taking everything I learned from those guys and personally ensuring that we strive to maintain or exceed that level of quality from every aspect of season 2. I wrote and designed ep2 of season 1, as well as extensive work on the final episode of season 1 and 400 days. I've been there through the whole thing and learned a hell of a lot in the process. I just wanted you guys to know that they aren't handing the project off to a whole new team who doesn't know how personal and meaningful this game is to you.
This is a thing that matters, so I just wanted to come here and say so.
Thanks guys.
Thanks alot for the information. Just what we needed under the circumstances.
Thanks Mark, really good to hear that.
...Do you have the reading level of a five year-old or something?
I get it. Big words are hard. Hurr durr. Don't throw a word like "pretentious" around just because you don't know your own fucking language past elementary school reading levels. You don't even know what the word pretentious even MEANS.
We will definitely miss Sean and Jake and we wish them the best in their new thing. But Mark's right on. There's still a whole lot of us Season 1 veterans around to make sure Season 2 is a great experience, and we're all really excited about how it's shaping up.
Well if he didn't before, he probably has a pretty good idea now...
I can see where he's coming from and no it's not the big words. It's the use of needless lottery ticket/near miss analogies and constant self-sidetracking. I can tell that Vanaman wrote it in his manner of speaking, which is...eccentric. Doesn't come off that well in text, but reading it in his voice makes it sound much more natural.
I hope it will keep the quality!
Well good to hear, this first time I heard this news I kind of panicked, but I can see it will be fine, thanks for the update.
No doubt that's true but you wouldn't expect the two lead designers/writers to leave after reaching the success they did after years of hard work. They won game of the year, countless awards, it sold millions of copies..and then they leave? There has to be something inherently wrong with Telltale considering the amount of talented folks that have left. Justin Chin/Jake/Chuck Jordan/Sean/Brendan Ferguson /etc I'm not there so I got no idea what is is. I imagine it has something to do with the ridiculously long hours they have to work. Maybe they should have just given them a pay rise or something but Telltale really needs to look at staff retention if they want the company to stay on track.
Well it's quite clear Telltale has mistaken making a video game for one of the hottest TV franchises of the last 20 years for thinking their shit don't stink. Now they can abandon their past, their fans, their old franchises because everyone wants to "play" these episodic stories. I think how Fables does will tell a lot about whether people like what Telltale do or they just like the Walking Dead. The fact that the powers that be have no interest in a season 4 of Sam & Max I find very disheartening. That was the IP that launched Telltale.
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No one at Telltale ever said they don't have plans to make Sam & Max Season Four. In fact, other than The Walking Dead, the only license we know they are working on is Fables, and that was one of the big announcements of 2011 (and it was originally supposed to release in 2012). Telltale delayed all of their games because of the delay of Jurassic Park and then they had to delay them again due to the switch from monthly to bi-monthly releases for the first season of The Walking Dead. They got a lot of fan backlash for announcing things early and then having to change their projected release dates because of the delays. Now, they understandably don't announce things until they are just about ready to release.
It's not that big of a lapse in time between Sam & Max seasons either. It's only been three years since Sam & Max Season Three. There was a two year break between Sam & Max Season Two and Three, so a four year break would be understandable, especially given the unexpected delays. And, Telltale did prove that they still care about the license by including Sam & Max in Poker Night 2.
They have said that they have unannounced projects in the works, so, given that they've shown they care enough about the Sam & Max license to not lose it (remember, Steve Purcell owns the rights to the characters, and the rights will revert back to him if they aren't used such as what happened with Infinite Machine and LucasArts), I wouldn't be at all surprised if the fourth season of Sam & Max is one of those unannounced projects.
I can't help wondering if "creative differences" were involved after all. Maybe not with the same degree of severity such as when AMC sacked Frank Darabont, but a disagreement over how season 2 should conclude? The ending of season 1 was instrumental in earning WALKING DEAD its popularity and respect, but there's no denying it was also brutal as hell. Could Sean and Jake have been planning to top Lee's death with an even nastier end for S2's protagonist? If that's the case, this could be the rare occasion when I might agree with a company's perspective. There's only so much misery I can take in my zombie games before I give up and go back to playing SUPER MARIO BROS.
I realize this is all just speculation on my part, and if I'm out of line, I apologize in advance.
Sorry you're having issues with the Vita version, but there are no plans to issue a patch at this time.
Uh oh! Chuck is actually HERE right now working on an unannounced project!
That's certainly not the creative difference we're talking about, because that's just a minor detail. Just two minutes in a ten hour game. I wish designers WOULD loose as much sweat about endings. They usually don't.
Most of all, they didn't leave wham bam. No layoff, no storm off. This is a decision that slowly grew over the years, not one that suddenly emerged out of a single neglectable dispute.
Telltale makes a very, very specific kind of game nowadays, and it's just not for everyone. Neither all players nor all game designers. You can see some people disliking the general "episodic story game" idea already in this thread, and you'll have to respect that. It's a rather railroaded interactive experience. It's all episodic. It's all grounded on popular IPs. If we're to desperately search for "reasons" why Jake and Shaun left, these seem to be the most obvious.
Coincidentally, these are about exactly the reasons Kevin has given us one page earlier.