Because I mainly play on Switch, I tend to miss most of the big “you’ve got to play this!” games that come out on other platforms until years later. That’s OK. I’m bad at keeping up with trends anyway, so I just kind of mentally make a note that a game seems interesting, then forget about it for a few years. Firewatch, which came out in 2016, is one of those games.
This game was kind of a first-person POV, choose-your-own-adventure, mystery / suspense game. It starts out with some text-based backstory about your character, Henry, set in the 1970s. There are little written scenes, and even though they are set in Henry’s past, occasionally you are given some choices about what to do or say in these scenes. I’m not actually sure how much my choices here affected the story, but I’m kind of excited to make different choices when I get around to re-playing this game later.
The text-based backstory scenes are broken up by present-day scenes (set in the 1980s) of Henry hiking into the Wyoming wilderness to get to his summer job as a fire lookout. As soon as you get there, you receive a call on the two-way radio from your supervisor, Delilah. She gives you a few simple tasks to complete, and you get to know one another. You carry the radio with you at all times, and you can use it to tell Delilah about things you see while exploring your territory. Sometimes she’ll call and ask you to check something out, and sometimes she’ll ask personal questions. Usually you have a few options for what to say to Delilah, and again I am very curious about how much the story will diverge if I make different choices on my next play-through.
Firewatch was a very cool, dialogue-driven game set in an immersive environment. It was far from an “open world,” but still managed to feel open to exploration and full of mystery. I loved the dynamic of being alone in the wilderness, only able to communicate with a single person, while dealing with a variety of stressful situations. Is this person trustworthy, a friend, more than a friend? I suspect it depends on what choices you make along the way. I’m still thinking about how this game ended, but I know eventually I’ll return to Firewatch to make different choices and see what changes.