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PROLOGUE OR NO PROLOGUE?
THAT IS THE QUESTION Written by Danielle Carpenter
Prologues tend to feel like out of place plot dumps that couldn’t fit anywhere else in their narrative. While Firewatch’s prologue deftly sets up the arc of our main character, it can feel lost in translation by the end. Yet at the same time this is a deliberate choice. Just as Henry gets caught up in the “conspiracy” and forgets about what really matters, so does the player. Is there a concise answer to this debate? To have a prologue or to not have a prologue...that is the question.
AGAINST THE PROLOGUE Reason 1 The information revealed to the player in the prologue should be revealed throughout the game. Henry’s story in the prologue can feel very distant from the plot due to the conspiracy element introduced. If the information about why Henry came to be a fire lookout was revealed to us alongside the conspiracy plot, things would feel much more connected. The ending would feel much more like a neat bow as the revelation of Henry’s bad choices come to a head at the same time Henry must leave the Shoshone.
Reason 2 The typewriter could be used as a tool for Henry to journal and vent his thoughts. Henry’s profession is never revealed but perhaps this could be another plot element. He is a struggling writer who has barely written anything in recent years and this frustration is partially a subconscious motivator for Henry’s poor decisions. Now he is alone with a typewriter. He could write
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MAY 2019 | LEVEL STORY
about Julia and the things that happened in the prologue and the player could read these and slowly get to know Henry over time, helping to slowly reveal his backstory and creating that as another plotpoint alongside his time as a fire lookout. The more the player learns about Henry through these journals, the more Henry can reveal to Delilah within their conversations.
Reason 3 The big question is - if the journals aren’t read in an unskippable cut scene, what if the player doesn’t read Henry’s journals? What if Henry doesn’t tell anything to Delilah? Ambiguity as a plot point is a much stronger tool than a plot dump at the beginning of the story. It forces the player to decide what happened and come up with their own interpretation of events. A successful example of this is in the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald where it is randomly implies that Nick had a gay lover at one point during the narrative. It is never made clear and it doesn’t need to be. Ambiguity allows each person to have their own interpretation of the narrative and allows for a much more creative and immersive experience with stories.
