Firewatch is an adventure game created by Campo Santo and published by the developer in partnership with Panic. The game was first released in February 2016 for Linux, OS X, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One. It was later released for Nintendo Switch in December 2018. The story follows Henry, a fire lookout who works in Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming. Henry communicates with his supervisor, Delilah, using a walkie-talkie. The player selects dialogue options to interact with Delilah. Their conversations help build the relationship between Henry and Delilah over time. During the summer, Henry and Delilah face unknown dangers and work to solve a mystery from years ago.
The game was directed by Olly Moss and Sean Vanaman, written by Chris Remo, Jake Rodkin, Moss, and Vanaman, and produced by Gabe McGill and artist Jane Ng. The game’s environment was modeled by Ng, based on a single painting created by Moss. The design was inspired by New Deal advertisements from the National Park Service and research conducted in Yosemite National Park.
Firewatch received mostly positive reviews for its story, characters, dialogue, and visuals. However, some technical issues and the game’s ending were criticized. The game won awards such as Best 3D Visual Experience at the Unity Awards 2016, Best Indie Game at the 2016 Golden Joystick Awards, Best Narrative at the 2017 Game Developers Choice Awards, and Debut Game at the 2017 British Academy Games Awards. By late 2016, the game had sold over a million copies.
Gameplay
Firewatch is an adventure game played from a first-person view. It is set in the American state of Wyoming in 1989. The player controls Henry, a fire lookout who is assigned to a tower in Shoshone National Forest. As Henry explores the area, he finds clues about strange events near his tower. These events include damage to his tower during a routine patrol and the occasional appearance of a mysterious figure watching him from a distance. Henry can only communicate with his supervisor, Delilah, through a walkie-talkie. When Henry finds new objects or environments, the player can choose from several dialogue options to speak with Delilah or decide not to communicate. These choices affect how Henry interacts with Delilah. As the story continues, new areas become available for exploration, and some events happen at specific times of day. Items found in the wilderness can be stored in an inventory for later use.
After completing the game, players can explore the game world freely in an open-world mode or listen to an audio tour that guides them through the environment.
Plot
In the spring of 1989, after his wife Julia (Larissa Gallagher) develops early dementia, Henry (Rich Sommer) begins working as a fire lookout in Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming. On his first day, Delilah (Cissy Jones), a lookout in another tower, contacts him via walkie-talkie and asks him to check for illegal fireworks near a lake. Henry finds two teenage girls, Chelsea (Erin Yvette) and Lily (Nikki Rapp), who accuse him of staring in a way that made them uncomfortable. On his way back to his tower, Henry sees a locked cave and spots a shadowy figure watching him before it disappears. He returns to his tower and finds it ransacked.
The next day, Delilah asks Henry to investigate a broken communication line. He finds it cut, with a note that appears to be signed by the teens. Henry and Delilah plan to scare the girls away, but when they find their campsite ransacked and empty, they grow worried. The teens are reported missing. Fearing an investigation, Delilah makes up reports stating that neither she nor Henry saw the girls.
While hiking, Henry finds an old backpack and a disposable camera belonging to a boy named Brian Goodwin. Delilah explains that Brian was the son of Ned (Mac Brandt), a former lookout who drank heavily due to his traumatic experiences in the Vietnam War. Brian enjoyed fantasy novels and role-playing games. Though it was against the rules to bring children to the towers, Delilah had lied about Brian’s presence. Ned and Brian left suddenly and never returned. Two months later, a small wildfire starts south of Henry’s tower.
Two weeks after the fire begins, Henry finds a radio and a clipboard while fishing. The clipboard has notes including transcripts of his conversations with Delilah. He is suddenly knocked unconscious by an unseen person and wakes to find the items missing. In a meadow mentioned on the clipboard, Henry finds a fenced government research area. He enters and discovers surveillance equipment and typewritten reports about his and Delilah’s conversations and personal lives. He also finds a tracking device and takes it. Henry and Delilah discuss destroying the camp but decide against it. Later, someone sets fire to the camp.
The next day, Henry uses the tracking device to find a backpack with a key to the locked cave. Delilah reports seeing a figure in Henry’s tower. When Henry arrives, he finds a Walkman taped to the door with a recording of his and Delilah’s conversation about destroying the camp. The next day, someone pretending to be Henry calls another lookout, claiming Delilah knows the cause of the fire, which makes them more nervous.
Henry uses the key to enter the cave but is locked inside by an unseen figure. Inside, he finds the decayed body of Brian Goodwin. Henry concludes Brian died from falling while climbing the cave. He escapes and tells Delilah, who becomes upset. The next day, an evacuation order is issued as the wildfire Henry spotted earlier grows out of control after merging with the government camp fire.
As Henry prepares to leave, the tracking device beeps. He follows the signal and finds a tape recorded by Ned Goodwin, who is revealed as the unseen figure. Ned says Brian’s death was accidental and that the boy fell due to climbing inexperience. After Brian’s death, Ned chose to live in the wilderness and warned Henry not to look for him. Ned disappears into the burning forest.
Henry finds Ned’s hidden shelter, along with items taken from the government camp, the lookout towers, and the teenagers. Delilah confirms the teens have been found safe. The government camp was studying wildlife, and Ned used its radio equipment to avoid being discovered and to scare Henry away. Despite Ned’s confession, Delilah blames him for Brian’s death and leaves on a rescue helicopter. Henry goes to her tower, and he and Delilah say goodbye via radio before Henry evacuates as the forest collapses around him.
Development and release
Firewatch is the first video game made by Campo Santo. It was created by Jake Rodkin and Sean Vanaman, who were creative leads on The Walking Dead. Nels Anderson, the lead designer of Mark of the Ninja, and artist Olly Moss also worked on the game. Chris Remo helped with the design and also composed the music. Development began with a single painting by Moss. Jane Ng, a lead environmental artist at Campo Santo, turned Moss’ painting into 3D environments while keeping his artistic style. Moss, known for graphic design work before, joined Vanaman and Rodkin to start Campo Santo after working on game projects for many years. Moss’ painting used colors and symbols similar to National Park Service posters from the 1930s and 1940s. The development team visited Yosemite National Park for inspiration, where they saw a lookout tower with the same design as in the game. Additional ideas came from Vanaman and Anderson’s childhood experiences in rural Wyoming.
Firewatch uses the Unity game engine. Ng disliked the tools for creating trees, so she hand-drew 23 types of trees that appeared 4,600 times in the game. A custom visual tool was used to make the trees look more simplified and artistic. The fire lookout towers in the game were built following government rules, using standard lumber sizes after Ng’s first attempt was not good enough.
The walkie-talkie feature in Firewatch was inspired by the relationship between the player and Atlas in BioShock and the dialog system in The Walking Dead. At one point, the team planned for the main character to speak with multiple people, like hikers, but this idea was dropped because it was too expensive and time-consuming. The team wanted to avoid matching mouth movements with speech and reduce animation work due to limited resources. Cissy Jones, who appeared in The Walking Dead, was chosen to voice Delilah in 2014. Finding a voice actor for Henry, who matched Jones’ style, took longer. They finally chose Rich Sommer. Jones and Sommer recorded their lines in separate studios but talked on calls to sound more natural. The actors decided not to meet during production to keep their characters’ distance.
The game’s opening scene includes the song “Push Play” from Joy Chun and Nate Bosley’s 2014 synthwave album Let’s Get Electric, which features a fictional 1980s synthpop band called Cheap Talk. Taylor Dayne’s song “Tell It to My Heart” was used as a temporary choice, but Vanaman thought it was too loud and expensive to use. Remo then found an unsigned artist who made a song in the style of the 1980s, leading to the use of “Push Play.” The game’s music combines electric and acoustic guitar, bass, and electric piano, with sounds from a Fender Rhodes keyboard instead of a real piano. Remo played all the instruments himself.
The game was announced in March 2014 with a planned release in 2015. At GDC, Campo Santo let the public test the game, and Ng spoke about the game’s design in a panel called “The Art of Firewatch.” In June 2015, the team showed the game at E3 and confirmed it would be available on PlayStation 4, but only for that console. An Xbox One version was later released in North America on September 21, 2016, with added features like an audio tour and free roam mode. The European and Australian versions were delayed due to rating requirements.
Users of HTC Vive and Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets can explore Henry’s lookout tower through the Steam app Destinations. This scene was rebuilt using the Source game engine. Firewatch became compatible with PlayStation 4 Pro on November 10, 2016, with improved visuals like 4K resolution and high-dynamic-range imaging. Free roam mode was added for PlayStation 4 Pro and Steam soon after. Campo Santo partnered with Limited Run Games to sell 10,000 physical copies of the game on PlayStation 4. 4,800 copies were available online on December 16, 2016, and 2,500 were sold through Campo Santo’s website starting January 16, 2017. In April 2018, Campo Santo announced a Nintendo Switch version, which would be optimized for the system and available on other platforms. The Nintendo Switch version included exclusive content and was released worldwide on December 17, 2018.
Reception
Firewatch received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic.
Steven Hansen of Destructoid praised the game's choice-based dialogue system, calling the conversations and voice performances strong. He noted that the game's greatest strength was its "thematic cohesion," which focused on the theme of self-imposed isolation. The sound design was said to create a sense of fear similar to movies by Hitchcock. Jeff Cork of Game Informer wrote that the game's simple text introduction and the novelty of playing a mundane story helped draw players into the world. He said the interactive dialogue, though simple, made the game feel alive and called the conversations natural and engaging. Cork enjoyed exploring the forest setting but felt the ending was unsatisfying.
Scott Butterworth of GameSpot said the game's analog navigation tools, such as a handheld compass and paper map, were immersive but sometimes frustrating. He praised the visual beauty of the setting, which made exploration more rewarding, and noted that the sound design helped create a deep atmosphere. Butterworth called the character development through dialogue "bold" and "admirable," saying it showed how two people build trust and care for each other. He praised the voice acting for being emotional and expressive, which made him connect with the characters. Justin Towell of GamesRadar called Firewatch "one of the most enthralling experiences" he had ever had. He commended the voice acting for clearly defining each character's personality and said the music and sound design helped create the game's atmosphere. However, he criticized some continuity issues that left him disappointed.
Ryan McCaffrey of IGN praised the game's realistic setting, even though the level design and artwork were stylized. He approved of the script, saying the voice acting improved it. He described the writing as tense, scary, and funny, often blending these elements in short moments. McCaffrey said the ending was divisive because the story had built up so much promise. Colin Campbell of Polygon appreciated the use of humor and empathy to develop characters and called the game's mystery and story "elegant" and "satisfying." He criticized the ending as "not entirely successful."
The game sold more than 500,000 copies within a month of its release and over 1 million copies by the end of its first year. As of 2018, Firewatch had sold over 2.5 million copies across all platforms.
Film adaptation
On August 17, 2020, Campo Santo announced a partnership with Snoot Entertainment, a film production company owned by Keith Calder and Jess Wu. The company is working to turn the game into a movie.