1. Firewatch is a story about running away from your problems. As such, it is going to be easy for most folks to identify w/. We all run from our problems. Right now, I am writing a barely read video game blog while things people rely on me to do are going undone. We all have our vices.
2. The events of Firewatch could have probably made for a decent--albeit kinda quirky--rom-com but it does much better as a game. The first person perspective plants the focus firmly on the characters rather than the plot and that is where its strengths lie.
3. You play as Henry who is basically Seth Rogan. He is bright but w/o any intellectual pretense, he maybe drinks a little too much and he wears shorts. But he is a good guy and his self-effacing sense of humor has won him the hand of the brash, intelligent Julia whom he eventually marries.
4. Things work out for Henry and Julia until she has devastating medical issues that Henry has difficulty coping w/. He has trouble keeping up w/ her care and starts drinking maybe a more than a little too much. Henry is running away from his problems. Eventually, Julia's family shows up and brings her back to her childhood home. Henry runs away from his current place in Boulder, Colorado all the way to Wyoming to be a fire warden for the summer.
5. To be fair, I have been to Boulder and don't blame Henry one bit.
6. Once in Wyoming, the only person Henry talks to is Delilah, who is the head fire warden in the area. Delilah's brash personality clicks w/ Henry in the same way as the brash personality of Julia did. Their conversation moves from having flirtatious overtones to being distinctly romantic over the course of a few months. This is all somewhat predictable, mind you, but the dialogue and voice acting make the relationship feel real and immediate. Also predictably, Delilah maybe does, maybe doesn't still hold a torch for a past boyfriend. In spite of the trust Henry has built w/ her, there seems to be other things she's avoiding talking about. This becomes the fulcrum over which their relationship is stressed. It seems Delilah is also in Wyoming because she is running from her problems.
7. As the game goes on, Henry starts finding into more and more strange things around the park. It looks like there is a conspiracy against our two happy fire wardens. There's vast areas fenced off and things hidden in valleys out of site of the lookout towers. At one point, Henry is physically assaulted and left unconscious. Henry finds out about all this stuff through random wanderings in the
park spurred on initially by the discovery of two teenage girls drinking
and lighting off fireworks.
9. This wandering proves to be a joy. Firewatch is a beautiful game with a slightly abstracted version of nature that strikes me as just a touch sentimental. It doesn't necessarily match the exact look of walking around in the woods only partially knowing your way around but it really nails what that feels like.
10. The music and soundscape are appropriately sparse but assert themselves just enough that you only occasionally notice how much you've been enjoying them.
11. Not sure if this is just my penchant for abusing OTC antihistamines but in spite of this having full controller support, I could not get it to work and had to use a mouse and keyboard like some kind of nerd.
12. There is something profoundly incomplete about the end of Firewatch. The explanation of what's been going on is wholly unsatisfying and it ends such that it would be impossible for Henry and Delilah to ever go back and find more answers should they want to. This strikes me as having strong parallels to the inadequate results you might see from running away from your problems. I understand why someone might not like this ending but it makes total sense in context.
13. If I'm being honest though, I did feel a bit disappointed when Firewatch ended. The story in it felt real enough that it just didn't seem right for it to ever end. I guess you might say I wasn't so much disappointed as I was simply sad for it to be over. It's a good game. You should play it.
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