This is part of a continuing series of old rants/essays/snark/thoughts/etc/etc/etc from years back that I figured I might as well throw somewhere other than a decrepit and deleted Discord server. This one comes from a “video game book club” that I played with some fellow traveler nerds.

As Always, Assume Spoilers

The Breakdown

Okay, I have finished Firewatch. I liked it a lot, although I think it overplayed its hand at a few key places. Basically the characters, dialogue, voice acting, atmosphere, and theming were all excellent. Setting is good. The plot itself is . . . Fine. It’s a cardboard cutout holding up the rest, and while you can get it to make sense it requires a lot of work.

Important notes from my playthrough:

  • The only thing I took from the campers was some nice booze. I never even drank it.
  • I told Delilah about my dementia wife early.
  • His name is “Turt Reynolds,” and I love him.
  • I did not have a fling with Delilah (I thought about it and it didn’t feel right at the time. If it came later in the game I might have). I just gave silence to her passes.
  • I started no fires around government equipment (not sure if you even can)
  • My end picture was mostly like the “real Henry” but with a Snidely Whiplash mustache
  • I told Delilah to go chill with her sister at the end

Despite the both fairly shitty and also heartbreaking intro (seriously, how is it both?), I felt a lot better once I got to the second day or so. That’s when you feel the rhythm of talking to Delilah. The game is at it’s strongest when you’re wandering the meadows with a map, a general goal, and lots of side conversations. I felt very immersed in the world at those points.

Delilah’s a fantastic character. She has amazingly written dialogue, and the writers are very good at putting in the little seeds early so that her terrible later decisions feel consistent. They have to walk a fine line at making her feel likeable and also make really myopic or morally compromised decisions. They are also constantly nudging your opinion of her in various directions and I think that every player has a slightly different opinion. I was worried the story would become more explicitly romantic, but I think the level it was intertwined as a B plot was appropriate.

Henry’s a bit rougher. He’s very much a blue collar everyman, but his lack of characterization up front really did make me dislike him as mentioned. He’s also the idiot in the room, mostly so the writers can make sure that the less clever players understand things. He feels fine on the whole, and the voice actor carries him well. It’s a hard character to write, because the writers need you to embody him enough to mirror his emotional state but he also is very much not the player character and that carries with it the risk of disconnection. I definitely felt this clash a couple of times. This was why I didn’t explore the affair with Delilah - it would have been too much callous up front before he gets characterized as “not an asshole” by the game.

The weakest part of the game is the whole “the government might be spying on us” paranoia. It felt like a huge tonal shift from something I was enjoying from tone piece to genre piece (even if fake). It was pretty excitable writing and I thought went too far. I also don’t really understand Ned as a character. Stalking Henry out of paranoid guilt made sense, but typing up fake research reports (with correct information explicitly not from the radio) and planting them with the gear of bear scientists just doesn’t seem to serve any of his motivations. I like the effect it had on my as a player emotionally, but it feels weird. Also, I’m not sure what the rules of the radios are - are they encrypted? If they are, the plot holds together although I have mild questions. If they’re clear channel, the new radio makes no sense because Delilah should know that anyone can listen on the frequency. Most of this stuff is minor, but I really think “there’s a murderous psycho in the woods who knows too much” would be enough for the paranoia and the government stuff pushes the tone to almost the point of collapsing.

Despite those complaints, I was still very impressed on the whole and enjoyed it a lot. The nerd is me is incredibly impressed with how often the game recognized my small choices in dialogue (literally down to the order I looked at magazines). I like how they refused to make the game overtly about anything other than “you can’t run away from your problems” and everything along the way felt properly scoped. There’s no arc of the character explicitly, precisely because the whole point is that you don’t make progress. The length is pretty much perfect, maybe even slightly long. And I gotta give credit to any game that can hit “nostalgia for a thing that never existed” because it seems really hard to create in media despite it being super common in real life.

Personal Verdict, based on why I play games

  • Story - Putting the really wonky plot aside, excellent. Probably averages out to a “good.”
  • Exploration - Decent. The game’s pretty linear, but there’s just enough “off the beaten path” to hit my “go live off in the northern woods” buttons
  • Player Expression - Good, although hamstrung somewhat by the occasional “WTF, Henry” moment.
  • Discovery - Actually pretty damn good in an unusual way - instead of items you get interesting dialogue and character interactions.
  • Aesthetics - I like it if not love it.
  • Emotional Invocation - Actually really good at this. I definitely had strong reactions at several points. (Prominently: Dementia reveal, confronting the skinny dippers, the pass Delilah makes, the lab with reports, the kid’s body)