Firewatch Works Best as a Game

Firewatch Works Best as a Game

by Danielle Karthauser

The Potential of Video Games

Video games as a medium have grown exponentially throughout the years. While most mediums such as the novel, music, painting, or even film have had time to breathe and grow at their own pace, video games have grown and changed at such a fast pace that it is hard to keep up. Due to how games were originally perceived as nerdy and for a certain type of person, there is a lot of gatekeeping that occurs when the medium attempts to expand or try something new.

Upon its release, Firewatch was met with a lot of praise and a lot of backlash. Much of the backlash was a direct result of gatekeeping from toxic gamer spaces. However, some healthy discourse existed where gamers spoke civily about how the game fell short. Whether the conversations were healthy or toxic, it became very clear that several people didn’t believe Firewatch was a video game at all.

#Firewatchisagame

“The only feature that objectively and absolutely defines video games is their dependency on the computer as a material support,” says Marie-Laure Ryan in her essay “Computer Games as a Narrative.” Whether people like it or not, Firewatch is a game. It intentionally invades the space of video games that all tend to feel the same, and challenges the norms in its style of gameplay and its choice to focus on narrative. Just because it isn’t the norm or what was expected doesn’t mean the medium can suddenly be put into question.

What do video games look like?

• Typically, video games have male protagonists. This protagonist must overcome something through the use of violence.

• Most games have a supernatural element such as zombies, aliens, or demons. The game could take place in the far off apocalyptic future or a fantastical realm of unicorns and sparkles.

• Games typically shade their characters and events in black and white. The bad guy is absolute bad and the good guy is absolute good. There is no in between. As the good guy, the player must destroy the bad guy and is rarely made to feel any sort of remorse.

• The good guy rescues / gets the girl.

Games can be very predictable. This doesn’t equal bad, but it severely limits the potential of the medium.

Firewatch challenges video game tropes

Firewatch having a male protagonist is about the only trope that exists within this game.

• Firewatch’s male protagonist overcomes his problems by talking and exploring, not with violence.

• There is no supernatural element to Firewatch. Instead, the game focuses on exploring the nature of humanity and overcoming real world problems.

• The characters aren’t categorized in black and white terms. Instead, Firewatch chooses a nuanced approach to explore the gray area of characters’ personalities. Everything has good and bad aspects.

• Henry doesn’t get the girl. Delilah leaves and there is nothing he can do about it.

At the end of the game, Henry doesn’t get what he wants but what he needs. He learns and therefore grows as a person. The ending isn’t satisfying and doesn’t make the player feel good. Instead the ending is hard and thought provoking, similar to that of a work of literature.

If Firewatch has so many novel elements, why does it work best as a game?

The fact of the matter is that there are a ton of stories about men escaping into the woods. Whether it be to avoid societal pressures or to escape their problems (i.e. Walden, Into the Wild), the genre is so overfilled that Firewatch would simply be lost. In terms of literature, while it is a well told story and very thoughtful, it isn’t doing anything especially new in the realm of the literary. Even if it had been a film, the story of Firewatch has been seen in one way or another before. As a video game, Firewatch presents something brand new that most gamers have never encountered.

Firewatch’s strength is its ability to immerse the player in the environment, to walk through nature with the various sounds of twigs snapping, water running, and birds chirping. Players are often caught off guard by the beauty of their surroundings. This is not only due to the beautiful art style but the technology that allowed it to be possible on our modern consoles. Without these elements of immersion and exploration, we have a much different experience. Firewatch relies on these elements and they play to the advantage of the story being portrayed in a video game.

The defiance of traditional video game norms is another reason why Firewatch works best as a game. It exists in opposition to usual tropes seen in games by defying them in almost every way. This is intentional and very significant. Firewatch’s defiance is what makes the game stand out, creating a much more sophisticated and thoughtful gaming experience. It cements the notion that video games can, and should be, viewed as high art.

The video game medium requires interactivity and Firewatch relishes in this element to tell their story. By allowing the player to decide what Henry says to Delilah over the radio, it creates a much more intimate space that otherwise might not be allowed in other mediums. The player is allowed to directly contribute to the relationship between Delilah and Henry. They can choose to have Henry spill everything to Delilah, or they can choose to not speak at all. This gives the player a sense of agency and feels very rewarding throughout the game, and is completely unavailable in other mediums.

Deeper Critiques

Firewatch became commonly critiqued for petty reasons in which players would not take the time to truly think about their experience but form knee jerk opinions and rant on the internet. But Tom Chick took a different approach. Chick runs the website “Quarter to Three” which primarily focuses on video game reviews but also dabbles in other mediums. He started the site with Mark Asher and has now reviewed hundreds of games and movies, on and off the website. 21

In Chick’s piece titled “Firewatch would be great if it weren’t a video game,” he presents a perfect example of healthy critical discourse when it comes to this game. I would recommend reading his piece first as I will not be diving into his points in great detail. 22 His critiques include:

• The game should have been shorter

• The narrative skips days and therefore does not allow the player to experience loneliness

• The space is not as alive as it should be

Chick presents his argument in well measured language without the toxic bitterness that plagues most negative conversations about this game. All of his critiques are aimed at Firewatch existing as a game but they should be directed as critiques in design and production, not toward the merits of Firewatch existing as a game or not.

For example, Chick specifically points to Firewatch’s cut scene system, where the game will sharply end a scene and move on to another day. The specific time jump Chick references is Day 14 cutting to Day 49. He cites this as the “narrative equivalent of getting beamed into a UFO and having [his] memory erased.” The reasoning behind this is that in movies, the audience is watching from the outside where in a video game the player is on the inside acting as the protagonist. Indeed I will agree that the cuts are a bit jarring but this does not speak to Firewatch needing to exist as anything other than a game. The game is challenging the medium in which it exists in a way that has rarely been attempted prior. While there may be some missteps, I don’t believe they contribute to the game being a failure but something that can be learned from and improved in the future. This problem does not point to Firewatch needing to switch mediums.

While Chick’s points are valid, they conveniently skip around the positive effects that Firewatch has as a game. Had Firewatch been anything but a game as Chick desires, it would not nearly carry the same weight as it currently does.

Yes, Firewatch could exist as a novella or a film for the central reason that it contains nuance where most video games do not. But this is the very reason that Firewatch works best as a game. It manages to do something new with the form and therefore at the same time elevating it as high art. What we are left with is something much more memorable, interesting, and different than any other medium would allow. It packs a much bigger punch.

Photo credit: Anastasiia Plakhotnyk / https://www.instagram.com/anastasiiaplua/ / https://www.behance.net/anastasiiaplua