Firewatch: how games are getting inside the heads of their characters

A new era of titles prioritise the strange relationship we have with protagonists above solving puzzles and gaining high scores. So can you still call them 'games'?

In some ways Firewatch, the beautiful and intriguing game recently released by San Francisco-based studio Campo Santo, is a mystery adventure. You play as Henry, working for a season in a firewatch tower, far out in the Wyoming wilderness. He is alone except for a walkie talkie, but very quickly he realises that something is going on out there amid the endless ochre tinted forest. There are kids letting off fireworks and leaving threatening messages, then someone ransacks his tower. Something is happening.

But then, right from the start, we realise that Henry is in turmoil. A mini-text adventure at the beginning of the game tells us that his wife is very ill, he has come here to escape his life. Quietly and subtly, we are encouraged to ask questions about what's really going on. Can we trust Henry?