Jack Kelley and his father are standing in the middle of the woods in Phillipston, Massachusetts. The pair are taking photos of the nearby fire lookout tower when, suddenly, they are approached by a stranger. As she closes in, they see that she is holding a lead in each hand - attached at the end of each lead is a goat.... Read more

Jane modeled 23 different trees featured in the game, making them by hand as Speedtree was not integrated in Unity back then. She also mentioned that “very few games have pine trees, because of all trees in the world pine trees are the worst in terms of being made 3D.” The artist also talked about the importance of atmosphere over realism, mentioning some technical limitations which defined her workflow. What is more, in Firewatch objects and places were scaled based on what felt right, not accurate. ... Read more

I was sitting on my couch with a friend, huddled over her ancient laptop when I heard the song “Someone Like You” by Adele. She was performing at the Brit Awards in 2011 and this fuzzy YouTube video was the first time I’d ever seen her sing. The song is brutal, devastating to anyone who has felt the sting of saudade. As she performs the pain in her eyes is evident with each emotional swell of her voice and you can feel her loss through the computer screen, thousands of miles away. We both watched as her face trembled, and she warbled with her tremendous powerhouse of a voice,... Read more

Wonder is hardwired into the history of videogames. It’s there in the labyrinthine mazes of 1997’s Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. And it’s there in the sheened cityscapes of 2007’s Mass Effect. Firewatch is part of this tradition, but it also fits into a longer-standing history of wonder and the natural world, a history borne in the Romantic movement of the 18th and 19th centuries. It’s also part of a more specific American heritage incorporating both literature and paintings, from the vast landscapes of painter Frederic Edwin Church to the words of John Muir, the founding father of the American national parks. And even though Church and Muir were documenting different landscapes—Church concerned with New England and Muir with the Sierra Nevada mountains—they share a visual lexicon.... Read more

As a newbie staffing a one-man outpost in the Wyoming wilderness, the first line of defense against forest fires, you're alone and almost entirely cut off from society. Almost. Your only human interaction is Delilah, your boss, barking orders at you on the other end of your walkie-talkie. And then... well, the story goes on from there. And since experiencing the story—living the story, really, feeling your way through it—is the essence of the Firewatch experience, I should stop there.... Read more

A caption informs you that the year is 1975, and you’re at a bar in Boulder, Colorado. You hear the murmurs of a crowd, the faint clinking of ice inside a glass, the sound of a drink being poured. But the only thing you see on the screen are words. It begins with three of them, the tripartite thunderbolt that will reverberate through the rest of the game: “You see Julia.” Two options appear on the screen: What should Henry, your character, say to the woman who will one day become your wife?... Read more