Firewatch

Throughout my time in Firewatch, which was on the brief side at just under five hours, I frequently swung between being captivated with Firewatch's world, and utterly frustrated with its limitations. Let's just say I am much more of a sandbox or emergent gameplay type of player. I love a good story as much as anyone else, but I like to feel like I'm writing the story myself. In Firewatch, the story is written for you. This is what you do now, this is where you go next, this is what you do after that. You can mildly tweak the story here and there with dialog options, but the majority of the game has you hiking across the woods just to trigger next plot point. There's nothing to solve and there are no setbacks, it's much closer to an interactive story than a traditional adventure game.

So, the story. It's really all over the map in both good and bad ways. Melancholy, mysterious, flirty, sad, frightened; but in the end, lacking. At first I was I was deeply saddened by the backstory and setup, then amused by my flirtatious, chatty boss, intrigued by the mysterious goings on, but ultimately disappointed with the modest and borderline nonsensical ending. I know this is the game's point, we create elaborate stories out of the mundane all the time, but this is a bit of a bullshit premise when you're inserting big, juicy red herrings into your story that never got an explanation and make no sense once it's all over. If you cut the power to someone's house then make noises outside of their window, it's a bit preposterous to say you're just commenting on the human condition of paranoia. You're not commenting on it, you're causing it.

Firewatch is captivating and flawed, and worth the time if you're looking for an evocative experience. Just don't expect a masterpiece.

Lonely, hopeless and a sense of space: no medium can convey these feelings stronger than games. And yet, it seems games rarely focus on these elements. In Silent Hill and Super Metroid [スーパーメトロイド], they play a key part in world-building but are never the focus of the experience. Whether it's due to its minimalism or focus on narrative, Firewatch lives in these traits.

I can almost imagine my own loneliness and hopelessness bars filling, as I explored the game's foreboding landscapes, anticipating the next walkie-talkie conversation between Henry and his boss/possible-antagonist/possible-romantic-interest/possible-figment-of-his-imagination Delilah. While the narrative-heavy adventure lacks grace and impact at times, it stands above the other Gone Home me-toos and becomes its own memorable adventure deeply entrenched in the brand of artistry that only games can provide.

Firewatch opens with an unorthodox text sequence where the player chooses Henry's backstory. Did he have kids or not? Did he approach his future wife with style or slobbery? Did he put his 41-year-old wife suffering from early dementia in a nursing home or lock her in his bedroom with furniture blocking the exit? If you thought, "Woah, that is way too heavy for me to think about!" Me too, friend. Me too. It's this single text/decision that highlights both Firewatch's biggest strengths and flaws. While it is bold enough to tackle real world relationship issues that aren't sexy or fun, it often does it with a lack of focus, impact, and detail. In this specific instance, to ask the player this question without information on the wife's or wife's family input makes it a cruel, unfair task for the player. While relationship issues as tough as this exist, they exist in our lives with far more nuance and detail -- the things that Firewatch's messy plot often lacks.

Luckily, these messy plot details play as big of a part in Firewatch as the text adventure opening: not much. For the majority of Firewatch, you'll control Henry from first-person as you navigate a Wyoming park that is approximately 10-Gone-Homes-wide and 15-Dear-Esthers-long. As much as I enjoyed navigating the hidden passages and secrets of Gone Home's estate, I was skeptical that a large open environment could hold my interest. Rather then feeling like Gone Home with the narrative beats far separated, Firewatch is a near constant flow of narrative where navigating and tasks give the game its rhythm. The farther I got into the game, the more I appreciated the environment. As the narrative went on, I felt more confident and familiar with the setting -- turning off the player location on the map is mandatory for players who care about immersion which is what Firewatch is all about. As the narrative grew dark, I perceived the environment differently. The open terrain made me feel volatile and the once-calming sounds of nature made me paranoid.

For a game that depends on narrative and where certain conversations are pivotal to the plot, I all too often missed out on critical exchanges due to overlapping conversation inputs. Chalk it up to player error, but it's easy to be overwhelmed with dialog prompts and miss something important about the characters' backstory or intentions. Firewatch is too smart and clever for its own good, intentionally hiding away important plot information in corners players may never find. It's no wonder so many are unsatisfied with the ending, since they don't have the context of everything that came before. Rather then including bonus side-stories off-the-beaten path, Firewatch puts the main story or side-plots that are essential to understanding the main story in places players may miss.

Firewatch's ending left me so cold that it soured me on everything that came before. It wasn't until I looked up all the conversations and items I missed that I could make sense of the story. Even then, I felt the game did a poor job of letting my interests project onto Henry's. The ending Henry wanted was not the one I wanted and it was frustrating to watch. For a game so minimal that puts narrative in the spotlight, Firewatch throws too many sloppy red herrings and frustrating plot points for me to consider it an equal to Gone Home. But it's the closest thing yet which is all the more impressive when you consider it did it without trying to copy Gone Home's winning formula.