There is really no choice in the matter, and the game provided little space to consider whether or not running was the best option given the circumstances. With a new job comes new duties, and those duties quickly call on Henry’s first day. Within moments of wandering through the beautifully designed forest, the player completely forgets the reason for being there in the first place. Life has a funny way of distracting us from the big picture through menial tasks, and that seemed to be exactly what Henry was after.
Then there’s Delilah, who is just as, if not more, broken as Henry. The supervisor, who’s only connection with Henry is through her walkie talkie, gravitates quickly to the story’s antihero and bypasses over all social graces to get to the center of who he is and why he has run away.
Firewatch takes on the role of navigating the minutiae of an emotional affair. Isolated in the woods, running from personal tragedy, and left to the company of only one other person, Henry’s temptation to enter into something deeper with his handsomely-voiced supervisor is placed front and center.
In a world where 1 in 5 divorces site Facebook and other social media as a reason for the breakdown in a relationship, Firewatch is a poignant glimpse into our new found culture of digital anonymity. Rather than displaying this conflict via a device’s screen, it explores it through the faceless communication of Henry’s walkie-talkie. There is Henry, with a hopeless marriage on the other side of the world and the perfect opportunity to fall in love with no threat of being caught asking the question of the player, “How far should this go?”
The player spends the game getting to know Delilah, digging to get to the bottom of a conspiracy that threatens both Henry and his supervisor, and engaging in witty banter back and forth. Near the middle of the game, as a fire burns, Delilah confides in Henry that she has enjoyed his company throughout the summer, and that she wishes she were at Henry’s tower to watch the forest burn with him. Delilah and Henry seemed to have run away from their problems only to find each other.
Disappointing is a word that has popped up over and over again when describing the final act of Firewatch. After arriving at the extraction and searching Delilah’s Thorofare Lookout, Henry quickly realizes that this woman he had spent 78 days in isolation with is nowhere to be found. Gone in the blink of an eye.
