‘Firewatch’ Review: Walkie Talkie | kylanknowler.com

For a game whose opening chapter covers ground ranging from the use of illegal fireworks at peak fire season to anxieties of dislocation and purposelessness—and whose narrative auguries are quite literally forecasted—Firewatch seques the player into its world with surprising gentleness. Chris Remo (alongside a rather rhetorical and straight-laced choice system) ferries us through Henry’s emotional traumas with a subtly and appropriately bruised score; the notes of which are, as with the cosmic heartsick of his work on Gone Home, acutely tender. Moreover, Firewatch‘s willingness to tear the bandage from Henry’s past for the player in a single and relatively quick motion, detailing but not dwelling on it, keeps the game’s prologue from feeling heavy-lidded and mawkish, despite the fact that we find ourselves in the Wyoming wilds after a series of fades in and out from black analogous to the false awakenings of a hot, restless morning.