Fire watch delivers stunning story, scenery

By: Sydney See

Firewatch, a first person adventure video game developed by Campo Santo, shows the story of a fire lookout named Henry  after all of the Yellowstone fires in 1988. The story takes place in the Wyoming wilderness in 1989. Henry (voiced by Rich Sommer), takes a job as a fire lookout after he finds that his wife is diagnosed with early onset alzheimer’s.

When he takes the job, he is assigned to his own tower in Shoshone National Forest. Henry’s only form of communication is through a walkie-talkie connecting him to his boss, Delilah (voiced by Cissy Jones).

As you progress through the game, Henry and Delilah begin to form a relationship. Moving further through the game, Henry witnesses and suffers from bizarre and dangerous occurrences in the area that relate to the ransacking and violation of his tower and other unusual problems.

Players choose from a number of dialog options when talking with Delilah. Depending on the player’s choices and forms of dialog, the influence and tone of Henry’s words affect the relationship with Delilah.

This game takes place over different days, but you can’t shift unless you successfully complete all the objectives and tasks needed to move to the next day.

I highly recommend this game to all. Firewatch provides an entertaining story and beautiful game for all game lovers. Giving the you the power to dictate how the gameplay goes and moves provides a personal connection to the character and story.

From the start, Firewatch shows great promise for a “movie-like” game.  Along with beautiful graphics and scenery, Firewatch provides a story that includes serious issues and provides a realistic script to go along with it. The realism is conveyed with how one would emotionally react to issues, sometimes with comedy, sadness or anger.

Firewatch is a lovely game that I could definitely go back to and play again just for the excellent storyline and beautiful scenery.