Will Firewatch differ between platforms?

[The_Balm]

Will the PC/Mac/Linux versions support gamepads? Will the PS4 version have lesser graphics then PC? Will the PS4 have the same feature set? Any other differences?

[ThatJaneNg]

The PC/Mac/Linux versions should suport gamepads. We test the game on PC with a gamepad regularly in fact. There is a graphics performance slider for the PC/Mac/Linus versions and the PS4 version is roughly equivalent to the "medium" setting of those platforms. The main obvious visual difference to me is that the grass is less dense on the PS4 (It is an area that a Unity game on PS4 is particularly bad at, not much we could do about it unfortunately).
There is an unannounced bonus feature related to the game that is not available on the PS4, due to insurmountable technical issues. Overall the play experience should not differ on any given platform.

[Sirrus]

Glorious PCMR 60FPS?

[ThatJaneNg]

The sytem optimizations we did for PS4 does benefit other platforms as well. Our sketch goal for me as the env artist was to make sure all areas are at or above 60fps on my dev PC on High settings (which is a nice high end PC but not a monster).

We have various settings for what High means but generally it means the LOD (level of etail) transitions for trees can be further, the grass can be denser, and the shadow distance can be further out.

None of those things honestly affect the atmosphere, mood and colors of the game at all.

[BabetakCZE]

What GPU and CPU you have in your dev PC ?

[Sirrus]

Originally posted by ThatJaneNg:

The sytem optimizations we did for PS4 does benefit other platforms as well. Our sketch goal for me as the env artist was to make sure all areas are at or above 60fps on my dev PC on High settings (which is a nice high end PC but not a monster).

We have various settings for what High means but generally it means the LOD (level of etail) transitions for trees can be further, the grass can be denser, and the shadow distance can be further out.

None of those things honestly affect the atmosphere, mood and colors of the game at all.

Let me disagree on atmosphere and mood part. Further draw distance improves immersion vastly. Even when game does not use "realistic" approach to visual part. It is fine to have shorter draw distance when game events occur in fog, forest, or caves (original Resident Evil 4 even looked better due to "fog"), where far draw distance is impossble, but when in "clear" conditions on open terrain we have 1 km of draw distance or less, it kills the mood outright. We can argue whether"gameplay is the king" and "good story and narration matter" are correct statements or not (they are), but visual side of the games is also important. Especially for first person view games.
I don't want to bash consoles, but it's hard not to, when even "next gen" ones, with their 2GB of VRAM/3GB of RAM limits, do limit further improvements. True, trying to squeeze all that stuff you need 2 flatbed trucks to haul into your Ford Fusion trunk helped developers to create interesting solutions to improve performance, but why the hell raise the bar of system requirements for PC into orbit, if multiplatform games cannot use resources they officially require? To hide bad port? Practice shows bad software could kill any hardware (yes, I'm looking at you, Batman Arkham Knight).
I like Witcher 3, one of my favourite games, not to mention good looking one, even after downgrade. But PC version of Witcher 3, as well as many other multiplatform games is unable to utilize excess of hardware resources (and there is a lot of it, if you compare PC spec they stated as "recommended" for Ultra). Even in 4K it used just a tad above 2GB of VRAM (2.3, according to my observations), and 3GB of RAM. i7-4790k was used barely at 20%. FPS 24, but that's 4K. Thankfully Witcher 3 looked fine (not in 4K, short draw distance made certain objects to look very blurry or not being shown at all, wave rather agressive LOD), and worked fine, but if you look at god awful Fallout 4, you'd realize that Gamebryo should've been hung from a tree, shot, gutted and run over by a Buick even before Bethesda decided put it into Skyrim. No amount of PBR, SVOGI and other graphic-fu will save that aging engine. I don't know what needs to be done to force Bethesda to improve stability of FPS in their games - drops to 10 on that engine and that hardware are not acceptable.
Convoy always moves with speed of slowest vehicle, and games optimized for weakest hardware (Xbox, get out of the classrom!), yet people with more powerful hardware suffer from that as well. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame you for anything, your game uses different art approach (and I sincerely like it), but seeing how poorly modern games utilize all available power to improve physics, visuals, draw distance, gameplay, and through them - overall user experience, it feels sad.

[ThatJaneNg]

I will post my dev PC's specs when I'm back at the office after the new year.

[himmatsj]

Originally posted by ThatJaneNg:

I will post my dev PC's specs when I'm back at the office after the new year.

Please do :)

I am not necessarily have to play on HIGH settings...I can play on medium-low just fine. Have a GTX 750 and i5 3330...hopefully game can work 60fps...will be glorious indeed!

[Sirrus]

Hmm, Firewatch is Unity based multiplatform game, meaning getting console settings should be possible at 350-400 USD worth PC. Famous Potato Masher has comparable config, while more powerful GPU. Your CPU seems to be more than fine.

[bburbank]

Originally posted by himmatsj:

Originally posted by ThatJaneNg:

I will post my dev PC's specs when I'm back at the office after the new year.

Please do :)

I am not necessarily have to play on HIGH settings...I can play on medium-low just fine. Have a GTX 750 and i5 3330...hopefully game can work 60fps...will be glorious indeed!

While we haven't tested on that specific config, that should run a decently stable 60FPS; if not on an SSD you may drop a few frames here and there as stuff streams in, though, but we don't stream constantly.

[ThatJaneNg]

My dev machine is:

Intel Core i7-4790 CPU @ 3.60GHz
Ram: 16 GB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960
Windows 10

[Sirrus]

Hmm, good config. I suppose I should have my PCMR Glorious 60 FPS then.
Thank you for reply, ThatJaneNg.

[Reluctant Hero]

Originally posted by ThatJaneNg:

My dev machine is:

Intel Core i7-4790 CPU @ 3.60GHz
Ram: 16 GB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960
Windows 10

That's great to hear! I'm running with:
- i7-4790 @ 3.6 ghz
- 8gb RAM
- GTX 970
- Windows 8

I had the opportunity to play Firewatch at PSX last month, despite the 1.5 hour long wait, and I was completely sold on the game. I was going to pick it up on PS4, but I think I'll go with Steam/PC instead.