Firewatch: A Walking Simulator
I played Firewatch, a roughly three hour long walking simulator published in 2016, and the first walking simulator introduced to me.
In the game, you are thrust into the role of Henry, a man whose wife has developed early-onset dementia. Henry has taken a new job as a fire lookout in the Shoshone National Forest in the Midwest to get away from his unraveling life at home. The game occurs on a few dates over the span of a couple months, during which Henry walks around the expansive park, learning more about his surroundings, occasionally checking his map, compass, and walkie talkie. Henry investigates mysterious occurrences that happen, culminating in a huge wildfire that forces him to leave the park.
Although other humans live in the park, Henry never physically sees them. Instead, he communicates with his supervisor Delilah through walkie talkie, reads written messages from people who previously lived in his watchtower, and finds evidence of humans currently living in the park such as a campfire and clothes. An unseen figure knocks Henry out, but he disappears before we can see who he is. We never even see Henry’s face either, as there are no mirrors or pictures of him around.
Why have human characters if you’re never going to see them? I found that the lack of visible human figures in the game forced me to focus on my surroundings, the most beautiful part of the game. Walking to new areas would advance the plot and fulfill directives from Delilah, but to me, it felt like the plot and directives were more excuses for me to explore the park and enjoy the scenery. While I found the plot intriguing, I was more invested in appreciating everything that the game’s artists created for me to enjoy. Parts of the story also happened during different times of the day, giving me an opportunity to view the mountains at night, too.
In short, the walking was needed to advance the plot, and the plot was needed to make players appreciate the beauty of the scenery.
And now for some ramblings unrelated to the assignment…
When I first heard of Firewatch from developer Sean Vanaman during a CS146 guest lecture in 2017, I immediately read reviews on the game. Many who played the game complained that it was just a “walking simulator” with no real gameplay. This was when the term “walking simulator” entered my vocabulary. After playing the game, I can see why many “traditional” gamers would complain about boredom.
I think Raph Koster, author of Theory of Fun for Game Design, would agree with all the dissatisfied Firewatch customers that Firewatch isn’t a great game. In the “What Games Aren’t” chapter in Theory of Fun for Game Design, Koster writes that games are not equivalent to stories, and games are played for the purpose of solving puzzles and gaining mastery. Games can be played for comfort and storytelling, Firewatch’s two strongest points, but not necessarily. Furthermore, Koster claims that aesthetic appreciation, the sense of wonder that the player feels when stepping into Firewatch’s Shoshone National Forest for the first time, is only temporary and cannot be substituted for real fun (which I disagree with).
The angry gamers don’t appreciate Firewatch because it is being classified wrongly, I think. People are accustomed to the term “game” meaning something that Firewatch is not exactly, and so they were disappointed when it didn’t match their expectations. Firewatch is a work of art that I thoroughly enjoyed for 3+ hours. Just as the term “visual novel” is already seen as separate from the term “game” and can be appreciated as its own medium, perhaps the term “walking simulator” can one day be separate from “game” and be its own category of media that combines storytelling with interaction in a 3D space.
