For my third Critical Play, I played Firewatch, a PC and console game by Campo Santo for teenage to mature audiences. I enjoyed the game’s beautiful environment and the tension from the feeling of solitude in the forest, as well as the moments where that solitude feels intruded upon. However, because I heard about this game before understanding the idea of a walking simulator, I was expecting the game to prompt me to make more meaningful decisions. Walking feels mostly like a way of slowly experiencing the surrounding landscape, which is nice, but involves me as a player less than I hoped. For the most part, walking only seems to tell the story by having me move from location to location in order to watch the next story beat happen. The game’s most involving aspect was having me distrust what I see and hear to create tension. Early on in the game, my guide, Delilah, unintentionally leaves her walkie-talkie on while on the phone with someone else. Clearly referring to me, she says, “No, I don’t think he has any idea. I’m absolutely sure. Would you?” From that point on, I was unsure if I could trust Delilah, and following her instructions felt more like a deliberate choice than a necessary step to progress the story. This, combined with the slow walking pace, contributed to the paranoia I felt as I walked through and tried to enjoy the view. All of the moments where the player feels involved, like confronting the teenagers (see image), end just about the same way, regardless of how I choose to act. Understanding what options I had in terms of dealing with a situation forced me to think about long-term consequences and what those choices say about me, but the lack of any such consequences left me underwhelmed by how little the world adapted to how I chose to play.
In section, my group played “The Witch Is Dead; An RPG About Murder,” which, as the name indicates, revolves around violence. Since the premise revolves around the player characters’ desire to kill a witch hunter, and the world-building die rolls established the rest of the community as unable to help, the players focused on violent strategies. I had trouble incorporating any non-violent recourse or nuance around the use of violence, which I believe make the presence of violence narratively valuable in video games. In my favorite game, Fallout: New Vegas, the violent option for resolving a conflict is often presented first, as it represents a worldview that matches the game’s setting, a hostile wasteland where everyone is only out for their own survival. However, the player is repeatedly shown the consequences of said violence, and is made to understand that siding with any given faction will involve being partially responsible for the violence that that faction perpetrates. When offered options for conflict resolution, the player finds that the non-violent one is often more complicated and requires more effort, but is more rewarding as it often earns the favor of all involved parties. Fallout: New Vegas uses walking to communicate its themes of player choice as well: the first time a player interrupts their boring traverse by going towards something interesting they see on the horizon, they are rewarded both materially (through loot) and aesthetically (through environmental storytelling). This encourages them to pay more attention to even the most monotonous parts of the game, forming their unique experience of discovering the world. This contrasts sharply with Firewatch, which shows all of the main story beats to the player quite unambiguously: through dialogue from Delilah, or clues that I have to see to progress. There are environmental details, like collectible notes telling the story of two forest rangers, but none of them add any particular nuance to the story or the decisions I make within it. Overall, I felt that Firewatch is a great example of how the medium of video games can be used to tell a story from a first-person perspective, making the player feel like their actions are essential to unlocking their environment’s secrets without directly being involved in the story’s main events. My disappointment came from the fact that I prefer a more engaging, fast-paced experience, but I think that Firewatch will stick with me for a long time nonetheless…
