The Impact Factor

Eye In The Sky

Review

Firewatch, Campo Santo (PS4)

Abstract: Firewatch is a game, a vignette of the human experience, that’s in a league of its own. There are no aliens, no headshots, no fate of the world, not even a focus on one of life’s particular moments. Firewatch transports the player into a snapshot of existence. It takes you to a time and a place and a mindset we haven’t really seen before in games. Firewatch is gorgeous, well-written, well-acted and gripping. The game skillfully touches on themes of love, loss, isolation and paranoia, delivering a mature narrative that has stayed with me. I give it my highest recommendation.

It’s hard to make sense of life. Our world is filled with the unforeseen, the chaotic. Humans are natural pattern finders, hoping to see through reality’s veil and connect the dots between seemingly unrelated events. We like to make sense of everything, discover the purpose of why things happen the way they do. When we can’t, humans often like to escape. Retreat away from the uncertainty. Humans are also social creatures by nature, quick to form bonds and seek companionship. Broadly, Firewatch is about these themes. Firewatch is about characters seeking to both understand life’s tumult and run away from it. Firewatch is also about understanding the human condition and how people react depending on the summation of their experiences. Firewatch is excellent.

Firewatch is the latest in the recent trend of exceptional first-person narrative games. The talent behind games such as The Walking Dead S1 and Gone Home got together and formed Campo Santo, a new Bay Area based studio. When you consider the talent of individuals like Sean Vanaman, Chris Remo and Olly Moss who worked to make Firewatch a reality, it’s understandable that the bar of expectation was set so high. From the earliest trailers I was fascinated with what the fledgling Campo Santo could bring to the table. Luckily for them (and me), Firewatch met and exceeded all my expectations.

 

Firewatch is the best game I've played in 2016.

The year is 1989. You play as Henry, a slightly chubby nearly 40-something who in attempt to deal with, and escape from, personal tragedy has taken a summer job as fire watch deep in the Wyoming wilderness. Several days walk from civilization and dozens of miles from another human his task is simple: sit up in his tower looking for forest fires and report them. His one lifeline, his one human connection, is with Delilah, a fellow fire watch (& his boss) who resides in the nearest watchtower. They communicate only via walkie-talkie, Henry reporting what he sees and Delilah responding accordingly. What was supposed to be a quiet, isolated summer turns into anything but when Henry realizes he is not as alone as he thought. On the surface, Firewatch weaves a compelling suspenseful narrative that touches on the fear of being alone, of being watched, and the thrill of solving mysteries. You follow Henry and Delilah as they try to deal with a series of bizarre, and unsettling, events and piece together what exactly is happening.

 

I fell deep into Firewatch's narrative. It remains compelling throughout
your 4-6 hour playthrough.

But Firewatch is far more than that. Firewatch is about relationships. It’s about Henry running away from his relationships at home and forging a new one with Delilah. It’s about Delilah seeking companionship in potentially unhealthy ways. It’s about the love, life, and struggles of a father and son. Firewatch is also about loneliness and depression. You don’t take a job as a Wyoming fire watch unless you are running from something, Delilah mentions early in the game. Firewatch explorers how you can feel at your loneliest even when you’re close to someone you love. And how even when miles and miles from another living human being, how something as simple as a voice from a walkie-talkie can be all the company you could ever ask for. Firewatch also touches on how we deal with loss and how, fundamentally, people aren’t prepared to face some of life’s harsher truths. Henry is escapism embodied. And finally, Firewatch is about fear. Fear of the unknown and fear of what we wish we didn’t know. Fear of having to deal with what life throws at us, and the lengths we’ll go to in an attempt to create new fears for us to face instead of dealing with those staring back at us.

Ultimately, though, what I love most about Firewatch’s narrative is that it isn’t trying to weave some epic narrative. It isn’t bombastic. There isn’t a clean three-act structure. Many of the plot threads have simple resolutions and are unrelated. Firewatch is about nothing. But in that way, Firewatch touches on everything. Firewatch speaks to many of life’s fundamental truths. Life is disappointments, missed connections. Life is trying to ascribe greater importance to the unrelated, the chaotic, the random. Whereas the game’s predecessors like Gone Home and Dear Ester seemed to have one fundamental message at their core, Firewatch is content to ‘simply’ be a vignette of the human experience. I’ve read the disappointment of many in the gaming community about the narrative’s ‘pay off,’ but I suspect Campo Santo resolved the story in exactly the way they intended. Life isn’t always a feel-good, perfectly resolved, dark secrets revealed page-turner. Firewatch’s narrative felt mature, something I desperately want more of in gaming.

 

Like life, Firewatch has a lot hidden below the surface.

A quiet, human narrative would never have worked without strong characters and great writing, and Firewatch has both in spades. Henry and Delilah are fully realized, nuanced characters with strengths, faults, and a ton of depth. You understand Henry, his life and his motivations, and can shape his personality throughout the game accordingly. The dialogue between the two is phenomenal. The game features deft writing overall. You’ll want to report every single thing you see to try to hear more of the great dialogue. Speaking of that, the voice acting in Firewatch is seriously top notch. Some of the best in gaming. Like everything else, it felt natural, genuine, and reinforces the humanity and the heart of the Firewatch’s experience.

Like other ‘walking simulators’ before it, Firewatch’s gameplay is predominantly first-person exploration. You walk, explore, inspect items, and interact with some basic puzzle / traversal elements. Firewatch, like many of its predecessors, gives players the ability to pick up (& throw) objects in the game. Like I wrote in my SOMA review, this gives tangibility to the world that helps immerse the player. Firewatch is also the most ‘gamey’ walking simulator that I’ve ever played and therefore one I would recommend to anybody. You can freely explore, find hidden secrets, take pictures, open up new movement options, mark places of interest on your map, initiate non-main story dialogue, etc. There’s a lot to do that you don’t have to. The best thing about Firewatch’s gameplay, however, is what it brings new to the walking simulator / first-person narrative genre: interactibility with a contemporary story. Let me clarify. As great as first-person narrative experiences have been, nearly all feature stories whose peaks have already happened. You’re an observer. For Gone Home or Bioshock or Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture or SOMA, it’s mainly about piecing together the past. In Firewatch, everything is happening as you play. You are experiencing the most interesting part of the game’s (and world’s) narrative. Your actions as the player are forming the story. This interactibility is enhanced by the inclusion of dialogue choices. The Telltale pedigree of the team is clear here. Being able to choose what you say, and who you are as Henry, strengthens the present narrative of the game and makes Firewatch a stronger, and thoroughly unique, experience.

 

Small choices like this help to reinforce Henry's and Delilah's personalities.
Dialogue options are a great evolution for 1st person narrative games.

One thing I never expected was how connected I would feel to Firewatch’s world. In the way that I formed a relationship as Henry and with Delilah, I forged a strong bond with the environment itself. I was transported to the Wyoming wilderness. Led by the strong graphic design of Olly Moss, Firewatch’s world is incredible. It’s stunningly beautiful. Your forest playground is colorful, vibrant, and lush. The game’s aesthetic is the perfect mix of the real world with striking graphic novel styled art. The colors and sounds and music ebb and flow throughout. Firewatch is a painting I want to get lost in. On top of all that, Firewatch also builds a great player mental map. Assuming you are not pulling your in-game map up every few seconds, exploring Firewatch’s world very quickly roots itself in your memory. The closest comparison I have is a Souls game. As you progress throughout the game, you get a clear sense of geography. You know how to get from point A to point B by using in-game landmarks. A certain tree or lake or cliff side is as valuable as any superimposed mini-map. This kind of map building draws the player even further into the world, which for a world as rich and beautiful as Firewatch’s, is a very good thing.

 

Keep the map down as much as possible. You won't regret it.

Firewatch is easily my favorite game I’ve played this year. It has learned from the pedigree of first-person story experiences before it, and expanded upon the foundation meaningfully both narratively and mechanically. Firewatch is an evolution, filled to the brim with well-executed and brilliant ideas. Campo Santo did an extraordinary job with their freshman outing. Firewatch is the kind of game that makes me excited for the future of gaming. Go play it. The sooner the better.

I miss my time in the Wyoming wilderness already. It's beautiful.

Firewatch

5/5