Some players admitted being taken aback by Firewatch’s it-is-what-it-is ending because they were anticipating a big twist. A lot of games and popular fiction that deal with a character denying his problems will do this. Something along the lines of Delilah, the lookout tower, and the Shoshone all being dreamy constructions in Henry’s head, coping mechanisms for an uncomfortable reality: like maybe he is the one with dementia, or smothered Julia with a pillow in her hospital room, and Delilah is a nurse and Brian Goodwin is a candy bar that fell out of a vending machine in the hallway.

But I like Firewatch’s more prosaic take: that running away from your problems isn’t just a psychological flight of fancy explored in a daydream or a mind palace, but a real thing you can do, and if you do it, there are consequences. Firewatch is a story about real people who take the easy way out and end up making a mess.

There is no government experiment, there are no aliens, they’re not in Purgatory, and Delilah is exactly what she appeared to be. There is no conspiracy, only a sad man who probably killed his son. It’s so much smaller than what they thought. So it’s an anti-climax, but the fact that Henry deals with it and finds it to be an anti-climax is significant. It forms a corollary to Delilah’s message that Henry isn’t dealing with his problems. No, she says, he’s not dealing with his problems— and by the way, your problems aren’t always as bad as you think they are. Or as interesting, for that matter. Henry can deal with his problems; it’ll be tedious and stressful and nobody’s going to think he’s a hero for doing it, but it’s nowhere near as insurmountable as he thinks. There’s optimism there, in the ending, if you want to take it.



It’s advice that Delilah could well take herself — to say nothing of Ned Goodwin, holding himself in abject terror of human civilization — but I don’t get the sense from her parting with Henry that she will. My guess is that at the end of Firewatch, Ned has learned nothing and will not change, and Delilah has new embarrassments piled on top of old ones but will never turn to look back at them again.

And what does Henry do? Go see Julia? It kind of feels like it’s up to you — in the sense that it’s open to interpretation, not that it’s your choice to make as a player. You can express a preference, but Firewatch ends before you can commit Henry to anything. There’s something to it ending where it does, I think, to Firewatch decoupling the player from Henry where it does. You are with Henry only as long as he distracts himself from his actual life. He grew close to Delilah and will never see her again, and the same is true of you.

Contrary to what Firewatch says in its opening, you’re not Henry. Not really. Henry has his problems. They’re not yours. Henry has to face them on his own. Maybe you do too.

This was taken from the Campo Santo "The End of Firewatch" post.