Firewatch is notable for its ambition over anything else. It’s technically in the same genre as other recent “walking simulators” like Gone Home and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, but here the player engages more directly with the narrative, or narratives, as it turns out. The game begins by setting up your character’s tragic backstory in a way that I’ve never seen done in a 3D title, incorporates a growing relationship between two characters into almost all of the game’s interactions, hints at a conspiracy thriller plotline, and tells another personal tale of tragedy along the way. That all of these narratives fail to come together in a significant way is perhaps understandable, then, but I was still hoping that the separate threads would feel more complete than they ultimately do.
I’ll try to stay away from overt spoilers in this review, but let’s begin with lead-character Henry’s personal backstory. The slightly-interactive opening is beautiful in its minimalism, and borrows heavily from narratives like Pixar’s Up. The goal is clearly to give the player-character baggage that informs his actions in the otherwise-disconnected main narrative. However, unlike Up, Firewatch fails to really provide an arc for its characters. He takes his job as a fire lookout at a national park as a reprieve from his crumbling marriage, and by the end of the title, that’s all it ever is. He doesn’t come to terms with anything, he doesn’t make any major decisions, he just gets wrapped up in a separate plotline with his boss, Delilah.
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