Firewatch

Taking a break from the repeated small runs of success then horrifyingly crushing defeats where I loose all my soldiers in XCOM2 and while waiting for the DLC to reignite my fallout 4 addiction I played Firewatch over the weekend.

Reminds me a bit of gone home another story experience style of game

You play as Henry a middle aged man who has taken a job in a firewatch tower out in a national park. He's out in the wilderness his only real contact with anyone is via a handheld radio link to his boss a woman at another firewatch tower you can just glimpse on the horizon. You set the scene for how Henry got to take this isolating job with a set of text choices during the games intro it's very curtailed in what you can chose but sets up the back story and some of the character of henry it also supposedly crafts some of the paths the game will take dialogue wise.

The game proper starts with you arriving at the tower and exploring the surroundings getting introduced to Delilah the boss in the other tower. I won't say too much about the story as that would spoil things but it starts innocuously enough and then gradually changes as odd occurrences start to happen playing on the themes of isolation and trust being cut off out in the wild with no help in reach and just a voice on the radio to talk to.

It's another spectacularly beautiful game the colours of the sunsets the forest the lake it's just wonderful and the atmosphere the game creates with the visuals the subtle music and the voice acting (which is great) is really something. There is a real feeling of reality to the environment and the way it changes as you progress I'm not sure how else to explain it.

The game tells it's story through the lens of the slowly developing relationship between Henry and Delilah your choices in what options to take supposedly allow the game to craft an individual story although I would expect the broad strokes of the tale would be the same.

It was a really interesting story and while I thought the ending didn't quite have the emotional punch of Gone Home it was still pretty good I still remember the horrible tension at the end of that game the thought of what you were going to find when you opened that last door and the multiple story threads it managed in the background of the main one. Firewatch is more straightforward.

Your interface is very closely tied to the radio link to Delilah almost every object or location you can report or talk to her about and often with a variety of options of what to say. So you are in a constant dialogue with her about the world and what's happening as a result the few times where that isn't the case suddenly felt very alone and isolated as a result. Delilah herself is snarky sometimes unhelpful a person who's been around the block a bit and taken some knocks in her life it's a wonderful characterization the script and voice acting do a great job of fleshing that character out.

It's also a game where there are almost no other people you interact with there are hints of people but they are always at a distance or you see the aftermath or effects of a person rather than see them directly which really reinforces the sense of isolation and makes that one thread of connection via the radio more important.

There's a lot of grey in this story the characters are not ideal they are damaged and selfish to various degrees and the moral play of the story doesn't take a cliched path.

I really enjoyed it although I would expect it's not for everyone there is not much game beyond the dialogue a few simple puzzles and exploration.