Campo Santo has announced that its popular indie game Firewatch will finally receive a Nintendo Switch version in 2018. The first-person mystery adventure game was originally released back in 2016 for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The news was revealed via the game’s official site. At the time of writing, no specific release date has been mentioned except for a Spring 2018 release window.
The post states: “Imagine the sounds of a babbling brook, a cool mountain breeze blowing through the timber. And in your hands, your trusty Nintendo Switch. This Spring, take your Nintendo Switch on an outdoor adventure and experience the gripping mystery beloved by gamers and critics alike.” In a separate blog post, Firewatch writer and game designer Jake Rodkins said: “We’ve been hard at work stripping much of Firewatch’s tech down to the studs and rebuilding it to render the world more quickly, to stream and load faster, and to generally be more responsive.” He added that they’re planning to improve the performance for the PS4, Xbox One and PC versions of the game too.
In our review of Firewatch, we said: “Firewatch is a bit like a visual novel—thin, elegant text displays, telling you your life story and occasionally asking you how you’d like it to go. Via a series of decisions, you work your way into the 3D world of Shoshone National Forest, breaking free from pages of text into sun-dappled woods and cool, rushing streams.”
The game was most recently back in the news back in September 2017. when Firewatch‘s ratings on Steam were under siege by angry users. The criticisms launched in the game’s direction were as a result of comments made Firewatch‘s writer and co-director Sean Vanaman, who stated that developer Campo Santo was planning to file a “DMCA takedown of PewDiePie’s Firewatch content and any future Campo Santo games.” Vanaman also described PewDiePie as being “worse than a closeted racist: he’s a propagator of despicable garbage that does real damage to the culture around this industry.”
Firewatch has won multiple awards since its release, including Best 3D Visual Experience at the Unity Awards 2016, Best Indie Game at the 2016 Golden Joystick Awards, Best Narrative at the 2017 GDC Awards and the Debut Game award at the 2017 BAFTA Awards. The game also managed to break one million in sales by January 2017.
