Firewatch – REVIEW

Firewatch

Firewatch opens with a simple text based adventure format as a means to cover the painful, emotional past of the protagonist, Henry. The backstory begins in Boulder, Colorado in 1975 and spans around 14 years where we are introduced to the seed of Henry and his firewatchwife Julia’s relationship, its bloom, gloom, and eventual helpless demise. Within this section players are given a couple options to determine the course of Henry experiences, but the results seem inevitable, making your choices inconsequential.

firewatchIt is wholly separate from the main game but it is very effective in working you through this character’s torturous past, instead of having all of this expository dialogue to explain it and bog down the progress of the more engaging story. By doing this the dialogue immediately has some weight as we are inside of this character’s head and understand his past and how that affects who he is today.

The success of Firewatch hinges on its human characters and twisty plot, and for the most part it does this quite well. There are great performances by Rich Sommer and Cissy Jones who bring to life these engaging characters, and an eerie tone throughout a paranoia inducing story.

The tormented, often defensively sarcastic protagonist Henry and the blunt, playful, and charismatic Delilah have anfirewatch unavoidable, magnetic chemistry. Every interaction between the two is captivating – whether they are discussing an unfortunately named pond or Delilah is enlightening Henry on the difference between a shovel and a trowel.

As Henry wanders Shoshone National Forest fulfilling his duties as a fire lookout, he can interact with just about anything of significance in the world and radio Delilah to initiate a conversation about it. By choosing to tell Delilah about something, it can give you further insight into the characters and possibly reveal subtle bits of story, which encourages you to become more engrossed.

firewatchWhen Henry is working he is required to walk long distances across the map to get from point to point, but because of the charming, witty dialogue it completely avoids what could have been a collection of dull and laborious tasks.

You will want to learn more about the world and what the characters have to say because of a fervent and pedantic continuity throughout that is just so satisfying to discover. Sometimes they are obvious, other times you need to make a specific choice, but each time it is a delight to recognize these call backs and connections. There was only one instance where this didn’t work, which can only be chalked up to a technical oversight. At one point Henry mentions something that I didn’t introduce him to as I didn’t make that dialogue choice. By the game pressing forward with this “false narrative” it briefly distracted me from what was occurring in the game. This was however mostly inconsequential as it happened only once, but if it were to happen more for other people it might actually be a problem.

The story progresses at a good gradual pace in order to build up the characters’ relationship, and its mysterious, creepy feeling. Because of the initial prologue itfirewatch allowed the story to jump over days at a time after we understood the type of relationship the characters had and its potential trajectory from awkward, mildly intoxicated beginnings to a hesitant romance. These gaps in time allowed for the slow build of this looming threat that seems to become progressively more unsettling as Henry tries to understand the strange events and discoveries around him.

As exciting as the plot became over time it came to somewhat of a disappointing ending. The game threw out a ton of interesting ideas that disregarded much of the seemingly subtly important minutia that built the tension and intrigue. As you play you want to look at everything to get a sense of what is happening and it was mostly meaningless, which means you can’t play this a second time and feel the way you should. Although, there were some intriguing discrepancies in the story that sparked some theories that might lead to discovering an explicitly unmentioned element, which could mean the ending has more to offer than we think. Despite the lack of clear closure, it was somewhat satisfying to get the ending we did, though I think there was the potential to make it more impactful.

Overall, Firewatch excels in its development and use of the characters to propel the story with engaging conversations that felt genuine. There wasn’t a dull moment at any point, it was expertly crafted and concise, which is partly due to the fact that it is a short game of only around 4 hours and doesn’t try to stretch things out unnecessarily. Firewatch is for those looking for a narrative driven experience with a mysterious plot, a cast of sincere adult characters, and an undulating wave of emotions from sadness to joy.

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