When listing off my favourite games, I’m shamefully likely to neglect to mention Firewatch. This is probably because Firewatch isn’t a game that had some huge formative impact on me, or reframed my entire relationship with gaming, or became an enduring obsession of my hyperfixation-prone brain. Firewatch is, quite simply, a very lovely game, and one that I happily revisit on a fairly regular basis.
I think the main draw of Firewatch, for me, is the forest. I am one of those people who’s often happiest on a day-long hike into the middle of nowhere; and when life doesn’t provide me with the opportunity to do something as often as I’d like, I’ll turn to thematically appropriate video games to tide me over.
Don’t get me wrong: Firewatch’s central story of Henry and Delilah is a good one, and the marvellous Cissy Jones deservedly picked up a BAFTA for her performance as the latter. But the free-roam mode is, to my mind, just as important for ensuring Firewatch’s enduring appeal.
