gameplay/storyline differences?

[Avocado0il]

If I want to play through the story/game more than once, will different actions taken affect the course of the story, thus creating a different, non-predictive exciting 2nd playthrough?

[Sirrus]

According to things I've heard, different replies give different reactions.

[chrisremo]

There is far more dialogue in the game than you could ever see in a single playthough, and much of that different dialogue is mutually exclusive, which means if you say one thing rather than another thing, it will affect what happens next, and you can't go back and "change what you said". That's one of the big things that will differentiate multiple playthroughs.

There are also locations and things to find in the world that are not required by or even related to the main story of the story. Most of the people I've seen play through the entire game have found different instances of these things. I think it would be hard to find "everything" unless you have explored the world pretty thoroughly and know your way around the map. Generally speaking, I suspect people's first playthroughs will be somewhat non-intentional. If people like spending time in the game enough to play it again, I could imagine dedicating more time and energy to poking into all the corners.

All that said, this isn't The Elder Scrolls or Dragon Age. It is a narrative game first and foremost. You aren't going to be unlocking a bunch of endings or finding crafting components or doing "side quests." (All those things are great, but not what this particular game is about.) The world and game are built to support a particular story, which we did our best to tell, and to facilitate two fully-realized characters, which we did our best to outfit with enough player responsiveness to create a meaningful sense of interactivity and realism. Beyond that, we've tried to infuse the world with enough space and points of interest for it to be convincing and to stand up to player exploration and curiosity. Hopefully, we've succeeded!

[Avocado0il]

thanks so much for the explination, im looking forward to the release even more now!

[Avocado0il]

was the game originally designed for multiple playthroughs?

[sean-o]

It wasn't, to be honest, but now that I've played it SO MANY TIMES I feel like it's much more ripe for multiple playthroughs than I had thought.

When we were working on The Walking Dead S:1 I was adamant that you should play through once and that was your canonical story. I feel that less with Firewatch.

[Sirrus]

But isn't first playthrough is the canonical story for most gamers? We tend to read texts and make decisions based on our experience.
Unless, of course, person is purposedly plays two antagonistic approaches or just exploring dialogues to "farm" best result in the end.