To that end, the main thing you’ll be doing in Firewatch is looking at your environment, and making a decision about what to report back to Delilah on the radio. “So we de-emphasized the physical challenges.” “It became clear that ‘talking to Delilah about stuff’ was what was the most unique aspect of our game,” artist Jane Ng explained. In the process of solidifying these ideas about what Firewatch fundamentally is, its creators considered skill-oriented mechanics such as rock-climbing that might have added a pertinent challenge to exploration, but ultimately decided that their efforts would be better spent on the interactions between Henry and Delilah. The demo, shown at the Game Developers Conference in a space staged to look like some of the environments from the game, gives a sense of what Firewatch is about: gorgeous vistas, challenging conversations, and what can happen when you try to step out of society and into nature. And when you make the wrong choice it will feel like you failed in a way that we think is more consequential than a ‘Game Over’ screen,” artist Olly Moss explained. “It’s not a hard game in the sense that you can die, but you have to make a lot of tough choices. Firewatch uses the solitary nature of the work to create an atmosphere of uncertainty, suspicion, and fear. “It’s a thriller through and through,” programmer Will Armstrong explained. ![]() Where those games got characterized by some critics as “experimental” (in the ungenerous sense) or “not-games” (in the only sense), Firewatch sets itself apart by focusing on creating suspense. Though it will draw comparisons to its antecedents in the environmental storytelling genre-exemplified by games like Gone Home and Dear Esther- Firewatch breaks from the kind of story its predecessors told. Being in that position, when things go awry the pressing matter becomes one of deciding who else you can trust, if anyone. ![]() Excluding Delilah, and the occasional reckless camper, Henry has to go all Smokey the Bear-you’re all alone out there. ![]() You’re up in your tower, watching for smoke winding through the trees, all alone except for your supervisor on the other end of the radio, Delilah. Here’s the gist: You’re Henry, a novice fire lookout in Shoshone National Forest, a cut of land in the northwest of Wyoming right next to Yellowstone. Firewatch-the upcoming game by Campo Santo-reads like a love letter to the National Parks, especially the big skies of the American West.
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