Firewatch (PC)

Firewatch begins with a subdued but surprisingly effective text-only introduction not to its main character Henry but more his relationship with his wife-to-be Julia. While the game itself will be a first-person narrative adventure in the Shoshone National Forest, this opening is vital in setting up an important element of the upcoming tale. Key moments in the relationship are depicted, from their meeting to their decision to wed and eventually the unfortunate raveling caused by Julia developing early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, your brief window into their life before and the harsh realities of its impact after already a short but effectively tragic tale. Henry’s struggles on how to deal with it lead to him seeking a retreat from such concerns, signing up for a job at a firewatch post out in Wyoming so he can take his mind off his depressing situation.

 

While the heart-wrenching nature of the set-up does do a good job of quickly getting to its unfortunate nadir, it does also show a bit of levity before it gets there, for Firewatch is not some morose reflection on life but a narrative exploration game which has moments of humor, mystery, and heart so it can provide a slice of human experience more full-bodied. Henry’s work at the firewatch post was meant to be a mundane and quiet escape from his difficult life, but early on he strikes up a friendship with Delilah, the two only communicating through walkie-talkie as they both operate in their own parts of the Shoshone forest. More than anything, the dialogue between Delilah and Henry becomes the defining element of Firewatch’s story experience, the two having a remarkably chemistry that undergoes a reasonable growth in the time span the game takes place across even if it is only a few hours in length itself. The summer in the Shoshone gives them plenty of time to do more than clean up litter, watch for fires, and scare off drunken teens, the two finding plenty of time for idle chatter the player listens to as they walk around the beautiful natural environments.

Henry, voiced by Rich Sommer, and Delilah, voiced by Cissy Jones, are able to intersperse practical talk with plenty of grounded personality, Delilah’s sarcastic wit able to be funny and frequent without feeling like some character performance while Henry reasonably thaws to her and starts to add his own humor to their simple but meaningful interactions. While at first Firewatch occupies your time with simple work around the forest to give them time to start their friendship and get to know each other, there are eventually a few unusual discoveries that begin to suggest something more serious is happening in this neck of the woods and Henry’s voice actor especially is able to sell a genuine distress at some of the concerns he has about the nature of what they’re uncovering. Delilah is let down a few times by the way the game presents a few lines, an occasional drastic tonal shift occurring because the game allows you to guide conversations by selecting from small batches of dialogue options, but it’s never so severe it completely breaks the impact of the moment and tends to involve something akin to a reset to normalcy without the ease out expected after a high emotion interaction.

 

The quality of the writing almost carries the experience on its own since most of your activities involve walking around the forest to do some simple task like look into a downed wire or eventually investigating some of the odder sights that play into the growing mystery. You get to chop down a tree and repel down cliff faces, but these are simple interactions and getting around is more about giving time for the walkie-talkie conversations before some new find introduces a new topic of discussion. Navigating to where you need to be is sometimes a matter of figuring out your desired path to the area, the game not really having much to find if you go off the beaten path but you’re not just given a straight path to your destination to give the game more of a minor hiking element. Your map is a bit odd to use, your current position indicated by a circle that can make figuring out where you’re facing a bit harder than if it was an arrow, but unless you ignore your navigational tools you likely won’t get lost and can keep the story progressing at a reasonable pace. You are eventually given a camera where you can deviate from the narrative path if you want some nice scenery pictures, although the cute touch where the game developers let you get such photos developed in real life is no longer available.

Firewatch’s story is one focused pretty hard on a few themes, even if it takes a bit to get to it. That opening segment getting to know about Henry’s life with Julia was not just to set-up why he felt he needed an escape out to the woods of Wyoming, it ends up being a key element in the game’s discussion of trying to escape from problems and responsibilities rather than confronting them head on. It makes no secret early on that this is why Henry gets the firewatch job, but some of its efforts to explore the topic are a bit less direct if you consider things only on a surface level rather than how they relate to other things brought up in the narrative. It could have done with a moment addressing the ideas head-on to perhaps make a larger statement on that thematic element, but it does do a good job of constructing certain scenes to tie into the topic without directly demanding the player compare them. Certain potentially controversial choices were done likely to continue its emphasis on this sometimes understated but quite present idea of confronting hard ideas rather than seeking some form of escapism or ignoring the truth to try and mold reality into something more agreeable.

 

Firewatch does feel like it could use more time to dive into these subjects, especially since the narrative likes to tease the player in a few ways. While Firewatch is a grounded tale of mundane life for the most part, there are elements of the finale that seem to promise something closer to an exciting work of fiction only to impose some brutal reality even if it has to bend a little to make it work. There is definitely important meaning in some of the choices found at the climax, but I quite reasonably heard of a few players disappointed with the ending because it starts to toy with your emotions a bit and not really for the purposes of a grand statement. If you reflect critically on it afterwards you can start to piece together why it was handled the way it was, but the misdirect undoubtedly still takes a toll on some players’ enjoyment of a narrative that otherwise does great work establishing the relationship between its two leads and how it can connect to the human experience of trying to find an escape from the unfortunate elements of reality. In fact, some of the need to emphasize reality’s rigid nature likely lead to the narrative paths the plot takes, Firewatch’s message effective but perhaps needing a few more moments to better convey it between the entertaining and endearing interactions between Delilah and Henry.

THE VERDICT: The vocal performances and chemistry backing up the frequent interactions between Henry and Delilah make Firewatch an enjoyable narrative-focused adventure where you can laugh at their back and forth while growing invested in the development of their friendship as well. The introduction of a mystery gives it a stronger narrative direction than chatter, and while some elements of its ending feel like they could rub players the wrong way, the evaluation of escapism and responsibility in a grounded world leads to many effective reflections on how it should be approached. It could have done with more time actively engaging the topic, but the devotion to realism that leads to it avoiding such things also helps better sell the messages it conveys between your time spent hiking around a beautiful natural environment.

 

And so, I give Firewatch for PC…

A GOOD rating.  The concept of heightened reality we see in fiction allows for stories to better lean into drama, satisfying narrative structures, and tackling ideas head-on, but Firewatch wants to point a critical lens at escapism not to completely condemn the concept, but to try and tell a tale about it that in turn needs to make some realistic allowances lest it practically betray its message. The unfortunate realities that limit Firewatch from being a more traditional narrative thankfully aren’t incredibly detrimental if you come to the game with a mind receptive to its themes, and the path to the story’s end still includes other elements like the bond between Henry and Delilah to support it when it’s not starting to look deeper into either plot points or the underlying message. The walkie-talkie conversations are sometimes mundane of course, but they have an amicable air to them that makes some fun to listen to while others do important character-building without feeling artificial. Firewatch does jump ahead multiple days to scrub out the actually boring moments one would experience watching a stretch of forest for fires all summer long and focuses in when there is something important to say or see, so while it is sometimes too short to fully establish all ideas it wishes to share it also handles certain elements like the reasonable time it would take the friendship of the two leads to develop without having us sit in on every conversation. I do not believe the broad strokes of the ending should be altered despite the mixed reception it seems to have received, that likely the result of not placing down more concrete nuggets to guide certain players to interpreting certain aspects of the story, but I don’t want to tell the game to “tell, not show” either, hence why making the game longer rather than denser could have possibly slipped in more moments to point players towards the intended message rather than seeking typical means of narrative satisfaction.

 

Firewatch is a very human tale, set against the beauty of the natural world and with calming music to ground you in its realistic world. It is a pleasant and emotional game, and while letting conventions of fiction intrude on it a bit more might have allowed it to better convey certain ideas, it also commits to its concepts and makes them stronger for it. Narrative exploration games do often need a certain temperament to appreciate, and once you are in the right mindset for the experience it offers, Firewatch does great work with how its dialogue is written and performed to draw more out of its tale of relationships and responsibilities.