Independent studio Campo Santo (Firewatch) has been acquired by a most unlikely suitor - Valve, a digital store operator that once made video games. Three people familiar with the news confirmed the purchase to Kotaku today.

Jack Kelley knew he wanted to play Firewatch since seeing the first pieces of artwork. After the game released in 2016, Kelley became fascinated by the real world lookout towers that inspired the game, culminating in the 14-year-old fan saving a historic lookout tower from demolition.

Campo Santo, the minds behind Firewatch, are working on a first-person game that appears to take place in Egypt, based on a trailer that premiered tonight during The Game Awards. Called In The Valley of the Gods, the game is slated to drop in 2019.

For years, Steam has struggled with the issue of review bombing, where large numbers of users leave negative reviews on games' pages, often because of controversial subject matter or news that doesn't actually impact the game's quality. Today, Valve finally addressed the problem. Sorta.

Copyright, free speech, and entertainment lawyers have mixed opinions on the legality of game developer Campo Santo's decision to fight hate speech with a copyright strike after reaching a breaking point with YouTube celebrity Felix "Pewdiepie" Kjellberg.

The fallout from the latest drama involving Felix "Pewdiepie" Kjellberg and Campo Santo continues, with a fairly logical target finding itself in the firing line: Firewatch.

Game developer Sean Vanaman announced on social media today that Campo Santo, the studio behind the indie game Firewatch, will be filing a takedown against Felix "Pewdiepie" Kjellberg on YouTube over footage featuring their latest game, as well any future releases. This came hours after widely circulated footage showed Kjellberg say the n-word while streaming an online shooter.

You know what they say -- your first 500,000 sales are easy, it's the next 500,000 that takes work! OK, no one has ever said that. Sure, diminishing returns are a thing, but I doubt Campo Santo is particularly upset that it's sold over one million copies of Firewatch, hitting the milestone "sometime late last year".

In 2016, I surprised myself. I surprised myself by playing more games than I thought I would, and more games than I probably have in the three years preceding it combined. Some I liked, some I didn't. Here are the ones that held my attention for more than a couple of minutes at a time.

While the climactic (or, for some, anti-climactic) ending of Firewatch left plenty of players happy to leave the Thorofare behind, a second playthrough could still have plenty to offer. Depending on how thorough you are, there may still be a number of interesting conversations, events and even locations that you missed on your first time around.

If there's one thing I do for this site, it's play a stack of games. 2016 was an amazing year and offered some of the best video games in recent memory. I sat down to list my personal favourites for our year in review.

Firewatch was a slow-paced, contemplative indie hit about people. So of course, somebody decided to turn it into a roller coaster.

Campo Santo's acclaimed Firewatch may have had its day in the sun, but it looks like the developer has been tinkering on the title in preparation for the PS4 Pro. In addition to "enhanced detail" on Sony's console, the game now has a "free roam" mode available for all platforms.

If you couldn't get enough of Campo Santo's Firewatch earlier this year, I have good news: it's coming to the big screen.

Firewatch came out on Xbox One this week.

Correction: it came out in just about every other region besides Australia.

Why the delay? Apparently there's a small issue with classification.

Firewatch is launching on Xbox One this week, in case you didn't notice. In fact, it was supposed to be out already. So if you're twiddling your thumbs waiting to play for the first time, or you thoroughly enjoyed the game when it came out earlier this year, the developers have some really cheap t-shirts that are worth a look.

A Ford car dealership in Quincy, Massachusetts used art from the hit indie game Firewatch in a recent advertisement, displaying the game's signature mountain panorama in an email blast sent to customers about a new sale today.

On this week's Kotaku Splitscreen I'm joined by game designer, composer and Idle Thumb Chris Remo. We spend most of the episode talking about jazz.

The first episode of The Foo Show, a virtual reality-based talk show hosted by Tested's Will Smith, begins with a trio of gawky avatars sitting around discussing the game Firewatch. Then they step inside, and it's pretty magical.