As of word of warning, I will be interpreting the meaning and messages behind the story of Firewatch and will therefore be referencing events and dialogue from the whole of Firewatch. DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER, IF YOU’VE NOT FINISHED THE GAME. For my spoiler-free thoughts on the game, read my review.
After my first play-through of Firewatch I was left feeling utterly confused. What happened to the government conspiracy? What happened to the axe murders abducting teenage girls? “That’s not what I expected,” I thought. Of course I understood the story on a surface level, but I was left feeling I had missed something. I felt there must have been more to Firewatch than what meets the eye. After just one playthrough, I felt like I had only begun to scratch the surface.
So I immediately began my second play-through. A third followed. And then it all began to click.
Studying and carefully considering the story, its major and minor characters, its setting, and even the video game form itself, I found something amazing. In my eyes, it was the kind of amazing that warranted a score of 10 in my review. Worried it may not click for everyone, I’ve endeavoured here to explain my interpretation of Firewatch, beginning with the narrative before moving into its meaning.
Let me stress, this is my interpretation; it may be wrong, yours may well be different. In fact, I would encourage you to form your own! I would love to hear your thoughts; I sense a discussion needs to be had regarding this game. (UPDATE: Thank you for all the comments! Be sure to continue scrolling after reading my thoughts to read dozens more interpretations.)
Firewatch’s story wraps up quickly, with lots of little narrative pieces hidden in the brief instances of dialogue or in notes scattered throughout the game map. As a result, you might finish the game a little confused, as I initially did. Therefore, let me try to quickly summarise the basic plot as I understand it. Of course, this is my reading of the plot; yours may well differ, so don’t be afraid to share your thoughts in the ongoing discussion in the comments below. (UPDATE: Countless others already have.)
The game begins with an introduction to Henry, drunk in a bar, as he meets a college professor, Julia. (As you play as Henry throughout the game, I will use ‘you’ and ‘Henry’ interchangeably.) The two start dating, fall in love, get a dog, talk about kids, struggle with their relationship and drink a lot. There’s a lot of drinking in this game — remember that, that’s important.
Anyhow, Julia develops early onset dementia and her memory starts failing. As Henry, you make the choice to put her in a care facility or to try and look after her yourself. Ultimately, the decision you make doesn’t matter (that’s kind of the point, again we’ll get back to it) but either way she ends up with her family back in Melbourne, Australia.
Unable to deal with the situation, Henry takes a job working as a fire lookout at the Two Forks lookout in the Shoshone National Park with supervisor Delilah, whom you talk to via radio.
Delilah has had it rough too. She kind of abandoned her boyfriend when his relative died and he rightly dumped her, but she blamed the whole thing on him. (Notice the theme of abandonment yet?) Julia’s troubled as well – the poor soul – and is somewhat of a regular at the Shoshone.
Progressing forward, you run into some mischevious teenage girls who later go missing. Naturally, you suspect this scary looking figure you ran into soon after seeing the girls, who eventually turns out to be Ned, but we’ll get back to him. He’s very important.
Henry returns to his lookout to find it trashed. You blame either the sinister looking figure (Ned) or the teenage girls. Either way, Delilah puts in a call and attempts to pursue the matter, but her inquiries are sabotaged as someone cuts the communications wire. It’s made to look like the teenage girls did it, so you track down their camp to give them what for, but discover they’ve gone and the camp left ransacked.
Assuming it was a bear or a “mushroom trip” or something, you let it slide but later discover a strange transcript of Henry’s dialogue with Delilah. Before Henry can really compose his thoughts, someone clocks him around the back of the head and takes off. You remember enough before being knocked unconscious however to discover a freaky fenced off area in the forest called Wapiti Station.
Uncovering clues suggesting someone is observing and studying both he and Delilah, Henry suspects some grand conspiracy. You break in and uncover all sorts of strange surveillance material, a radio wave detector that picks up electronic signal and more “scientific” records of you and Delilah. Angry and scared, she suggests burning the whole place down, but you dissuade her. Regardless, the place catches fire as you’re leaving. Not cool!
Later that evening, your fancy new radio wave detector picks up a signal which leads you to the very well hidden – and alarmed – set of keys to the cave you stumbled across earlier. Delilah spots someone at Henry’s lookout, but they’re gone by the time you arrive. All that’s left is a cassette tape with a recording of Henry and Delilah’s conversation prior making it sound like you wanted to burn down Wapiti Station. Eek!
The next day, you use your newly acquired key to get into the cave but someone shuts the gate behind you and traps you in. Desperate to get out of this creepy cave, you manage to find a way out that leads you to the hideout of Brian Goodwin. Brian Goodwin was a 12 year old kid that lived with his father and PTSD-sufferer, Ned Goodwin (a.k.a the mysterious figure you were to remember), at Two Forks three years ago. However, the pair mysteriously vanished.
At Brian’s hideout, you find some anchors that allow you to climb deeper into the cave where you sadly discover Brian Goodwin’s severely decomposed corpse.
Well and truly over it, Delilah and Henry decide to leave the next day. However, your radio wave detector picks up another signal which leads to a rope and another cassette. The rope leads to Ned’s lookout and the cassette is a voice recording of Ned Goodwin – who is alive after all – explaining the truth…
Nope. This is a very real story of human tragedy. Or at least, that’s how I see it.
Piecing together what I can from the notes in Ned’s hideout and his explanation on the voice recording, I feel like I now have an understanding of all the character motivations, and an explanation from all the mysterious events.
Brian is killed in a climbing accident, we kind of have to take Ned’s word on that. Maybe he murdered him, had a PTSD episode and inadvertently killed him, or maybe Ned was just negligent, but either way, it sends Ned of the rails and he abandons his post and hides away in the forest, literally and figuratively abandoning his son.
And so he lives in solitude for three years until he accidentally runs into Henry, triggering all the following events. It’s very cause and effect.
Ned’s ransacked Henry’s lookout, perhaps in an effort to scare him off having run into Henry. He’s paranoid and so acts irrationally. Or perhaps he was ransacking the joint prior to bumping into Henry for supplies, hoping the teenage girls you pissed off would take the blame. That perhaps makes sense considering winter is coming.
Either way, Delilah puts in the call. Ned, attempting to stop Delilah from pursuing the matter further, cuts the communications line and frames the teenage girls leaving the trail of beer cans. As Henry goes to confront them, Ned panics again knowing the girls would deny any involvement and perhaps cause Henry to suspect someone else. Subsequently, Ned destroys the girls’ camp so as to scare them off, leaving Henry’s sheets to direct suspicion towards them for wrecking his lookout. Alternatively, he could have destroyed the camp earlier in a bid to get rid of them too. Worried that this will cause issues for them and may merely be the result of a rogue bear or the influence of drugs, Henry and Delilah put the matter aside, blaming the teenage girls at that point for most of the trouble. Both have had trouble with the police in the past, so it makes sense that they would avoid calling them.
Ned’s in the clear for the time being, but makes a mistake, leaving his transcript of Henry and Delilah’s conversations for Henry to find near the lake. He freaks again, knocking out Henry.
Ned takes advantage of Delilah’s remarks about burning the site down by recording them to use as leverage as need be, and proceeds to burn the site down himself.
Back at Two Forks, the radio wave detector Henry takes from the station picks up Ned’s alarm guarding the cave keys he’d attempted to hide. Admittedly, this confuses me. My guess is that Ned was likely unaware the alarm, potentially a backup in case something or someone stumbles on the keys, would be picked up by the radio wave detector. I don’t know how plausible that is, but it could be possible.
As Henry explores the cave, Ned makes a final ditch attempt to stop him finding Brian’s body. Ned may well want to avoid Henry calling in a search and rescue squad to locate Ned, or the police on suspicion of his murder, so Ned shuts the door behind Henry in an effort to trap him in there. Unfortunately for him, Henry breaks out, finding Brian’s hideout and anchors, which a note reveals Brian has kept hidden from Ned because he’s not keen on climbing. Hmmm, Brian didn’t like climbing hey? Interesting… Did Ned insist he join him on his climbs?
Anyhow, using the anchors Ned didn’t account on you finding, Henry climbs deeper into the cave eventually leading him to Brian’s body.
Conceding defeat and being forced to flee because of the approaching fire anyway, Ned leads Henry to his hideout and admits the truth, pleading Henry not to send anyone after him, but let him live alone in the forest where he does not have to take responsibility for his mistakes.
Hell no. This is where it gets crazy, and I perhaps get a little crazy analytical, so stick with me if you’ve made it this far.
“I came out here for a breath of fresh air and some adventure.”
Henry delivers this line right at the beginning of the game, and I’ve put it in bold for a reason. In this one line, almost all of Henry’s character motivations are explained.
Firewatch is all about escapism. It’s about running away from real life, from it’s hardships, from your mistakes. Almost every character in the game has a troubled past they are trying to flee from, mistakes they are trying to avoid facing, all of which are inescapable facts of life. Firewatch reminds us that no one is safe from the harsh reality of life. We must face hardship, and deal with its consequences.
Don’t believe me? In the initial stages of the game, the text choices you make are interrupted by Henry literally making his escape into the Shoshone. You even run into a wild deer, which becomes startled as you approach, and flees for safety. The theme slaps you right across the face.
Regardless of the decisions you make in the introduction, mistakes with regards to your relationship with Julia are unavoidable, and Henry runs away from the situation rather than confronting it. For example, when she comes home late you can either be angry or ignore it, but both have negative consequences on your relationship. Let’s remember that we are human, and humans make mistakes. They are an unavoidable fact of life. Unable to deal with the degradation of their relationship, and Julia’s worsening illness, Henry goes seeking “a breath of fresh air and some adventure,” a reprieve to distract him from his thoughts.
It explains why he builds up the conspiracy in his head as he does. Some part of him – something I would argue is part of us all – seeks some desperate, terrible circumstance to distracts us from other challenging aspects of our lives. A grand “conspiracy” seems plausible because it conveniently distracts him from his real problems. If you play through the game again, knowing that it is indeed all Ned’s creation, Wapiti Station looks far faker and clearly not a centre for human surveillance. The folder with their names on it only has only one page of “reports” for each of them; that’s not a very detailed study going on. Yet he seeks this distraction, this psychological escape and so willingly accepts it. We too go to play video games expecting a grand narrative, a ‘story’, maybe to distract us from the mundane reality of our lives, so we’re likely to believe it too — but more on that later.
Escapism is symbolised in the cast of supporting characters too. Delilah represents a possible source of escape for Henry, potentially even a romantic one that you can attempt to pursue. That ultimately fails too; Delilah is an influencing factor on Henry, despite making an escape herself. She too escapes to the lookout post each season, taking a break from life, but the struggles that plague her thoughts remain and she continuously returns to alcohol as an escape. Alcohol is somewhat of a motif throughout the game, continuously signposting escape attempts, from the teenage girls to Delilah, to Henry himself who admits to being a heavy drinker. That obviously doesn’t work for them either; remember they both get DUIs. They cannot escape the law.
It’s interesting that players so eagerly pursue a romance with Delilah or at least want to meet her. Maybe the player wants to abandon Julia, his/your wife, too? I wonder how many of you spotted the ring on Henry’s desk and decided to put it back on…? Again, more on this later.
However, no escape attempts works. Fate forces reality back onto Henry, back onto Delilah and back even onto Ned. The fire, symbolic of life, fate or whatever, closes in on them and forces them out of the forest, back to reality.
Ned maybe represents the extreme path Henry could’ve gone down. There are strong parallels between them. Faced with an incredibly tough situation – the death of his son – Ned abandons Brian and escapes into the depths of the forest, into complete solitude where he does not have to face up to his mistakes or deal with the hardships of real life. Remember, Henry too has abandoned Julia and runs away from dealing with it. Having discovered the truth about Ned, Delilah curses him, calling him a “coward”. Is Henry not cowardly too?
As fate would have it though, cause and effect – and continued mistakes on behalf of Ned – force Ned back to reality as he admits the truth to Henry in a bid to prevent him from alerting the authorities. A manhunt would well and truly foil Ned’s escape.
The truth of the matter is there is no gigantic, larger than life conspiracy. There is no grand plan, no puppet master pulling the strings. There is no one to blame, nowhere to escape, even in the depths of the forest in 1989 before the time of cell phones and the internet. Firewatch is a realistic look at an inescapable human tragedy. We learn that no matter how hard we try, any attempt to flee reality is doomed to fail. We must face it. We must confront it. We must deal with our mistakes. Life will always catch up with us.
And then we consider the form of video games themselves and it gets even more interesting and frankly what makes this game so special I felt it deserved the highest score I could award it. Firewatch affirms video games as a true art-form.
And video games are inherently related to escapism. We play video games to escape aspects of our lives, the hard bits and the boring bits. We enter a world, a world of fantasy, of the surreal, so as to escape and momentarily distract us from the real world. Henry, both literally and metaphorically, enters a video game.
Do we not – in a metaphorical sense – play games for a “breath of fresh air and some adventure?”
Campo Santo uses and manipulates the form of video games to impart the same message; escape is impossible, whether it be in the Shoshone Forest or in a video game, we must eventually leave or log-off and return to reality.
They do so by removing our decision making power, as life so often does. There is a single, fated outcome and despite our best efforts, we are destined to arrive at the same destination, even if the journey is different.
Firewatch exploits traditional video game conventions to build suspense. We’re familiar with outlandish, unrealistic stories in games and as we uncover clues, we naturally begin to formulate our own ideas of conspiracy, of scientific studies, aliens, monsters and axe murders. Let me remind you of the poorly supplied ‘surveillance facility’ we uncover, or the romantic relationship we pursue with Julia. We pursue the same escape Henry seeks.
However, the game ends the way it does and reality hits us hard. There is no conspiracy, just a tragic tale of people unable to deal with the hardships of life. In the end, it’s kind of mundane, sort of anticlimactic. But then, life often is. There’s no grand narrative, climax or big reveal, just real life with all its faults. Depressing I know.
Campo Santo uses the medium of video games in a way I’ve never experienced before, in the process making criticisms of the form like no one has done before. Video games, like taking a job as a fire lookout, cannot allow us to escape. Nothing can. We must eventually log-off and return to reality. That’s probably something all gamers ought to remember.
There we have it; that’s my attempt at explaining and interpreting Firewatch. That’s the depth to which I believe this story goes to, and the reason I felt it deserved a 10.
I feel that – in basic terms – Firewatch tries to impart the impossibility of escape. We cannot escape the harsh reality of life, regardless of what decisions we make. Hardship is something we all experience at some point or another, but we must face it and confront our mistakes.
But that’s my reading of Firewatch, what’s yours?
(UPDATE: Subsequent to publishing my explanation, the game’s lead artist – a well-known artist in his own right – Olly Moss gave my thoughts some credit in the tweet embedded below, so perhaps I’m not wildly off the mark.)
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The story explanation part is great. But part two is way too much. I don't think Firewatch impart the impossibility of escape. Yes a person CAN escape the harsh reality of life, and he/she doen't always have to face it. All he has to do is not giving a damn.
This is an old post, and someone might have already mentioned these, but I thought I would add two things that support the theme of escapism:
Brian Goodwin seems to love fantasy games and enjoys immersing himself in a fantasy world, just as the player is doing. His Orc map adds a kind of meta layer to Firewatch's commentary on gaming: the player spends hours wandering around a made up forest and referring to a map of that forest. Brian's map is just a parody of that. It exposes how bizarre it is that games contain elements suggestive lf empirical data (like maps). If games are supposed to be escape, why do they have so many parallels to real life?
The crime/spy thriller novels strewn throughout the game represent escapist novels, which people can read for many of the same reasons as they play video games.
I think what's somewhat novel about the game is that it tries to pull you in all these directions without ever strongly hinting at any of them being the true course (at least not until the end).
The thing about theories is that the "theory space" is IMMENSE - it takes a huge body of evidence just to get a DIRECTION towards what really may have happened - but in most games we're presented with the explanation on a silver platter (and yes, even if we have to piece it together, we ultimately end up with what is afterwards called "word of God"). Not quite so here: even despite having some questions answered at the end, there's a whole heap of loose ends we'll probably never clean up -- like the broken Gameboy under the makeshift table at the fort. It's only because we can draw on similarities from "real life" that we can put these things in context, but it's still just a vague idea. This causes the players to question everything, because they really and truly know nothing at all (if you have a theory that doesn't differentiate between one outcome and the next, you have zero knowledge). This is a "real life" story precisely because it's messy and open-ended on all fronts, in contrast to proper "stories" we're told that have a main current and resolve at the end, with identifiable bad guys and heroes.
This is "just a story". A slice of life; stuff we commonly escape from because we like our stories, our escapes, to have closure and structure, simply because life often just doesn't work out that way.
Hello, pretty late but i just played the game and i really loved it, and well my experience in videogames just told me "This isn't the kind of game that would turn into a resident evil kind of game" but everything i went through while playing it was just making me feel that this was that kind of game, and when i found Brian dead, i just thought "Ok, so the guys that were studying us were studying that kid? was he a genius or something?(based on the kind of stuff i found at his hideout)" and then Delila just said that it would be impossible, that i couldn't be saying that kinds of stuff right now, and it really was like a hit to "reality" within the game. Seems i was wrong, there was no conspiracy or biohazard kind of theme, my hunch was correct but the game made me think otherwise. So the ending was kind of a let down and at the same time it was a weird kinda hype i felt, the game was just amazing, so much that i couldn't even understand the actual meaning it really had (which i think is the meaning you gave to the game) and i am right now really happy to have played this amazing game, although it was a little short and i kinda hate the fact that i never got to see Delilah and i kinda hated that just when the game was ending, Delilah didn't even wanted to see Henry, made me think how superficial their relationship was. Just as how Henry wanted to escape from his harsh reality, the love he had for Julia that was practically gone because of Alzheimer, the fact that Delilah was sometimes really flirty with Henry but never actually tried to get things straight with him and always leaving Henry really doubtful about it, for example, like when he found Brian's hideout, and called Delilah sweetheart because of the flags she was "giving" him and everything, they were both just an escape route for each other, and it was all crushed when Ned meddled with them. They were nothing more than co-workers at this point, and because of the story they were kind of partners-in-crime. Well, that's what i think about it, but regardless. Amazing game.
So I just finished the game recently (yes I know so late on the hype train) it was one of the best games I've played in a while, I completely agree with your explanation and I feel like there is no one right plot line and it just depends on how you interpret the game for yourself which I think is very interesting because there are other interpretations that make sense when they are explain example: D setting up this whole mystery working alongside with Ned which frustrated me since I really liked D but looking it in that sense it does make sense. But I won't accept that theory since that's not how I read it the first time hmm
Good job Ewan
After a year or two, I just finished the game a third time and I feel like your analysis is very accurate and sums up a lot of what I´ve been thinking about the game, but I think that there are soo many unanswered questions yet to be answered. It´s way too interesting. To name a few:
1. Halfway through the game, I´m not sure if it´s at Wapiti station or at the Lake, Henry finds a report obviously written by Ned that contains things that he, as he tells her then, has never told Delilah via radio at any point. Ned Goodwin was living secluded out there in the mountains, where would he get data on Henry?
Speaking of Delilah, I feel like she was the biggest mystery in the game. Even the game´s main menu only features Delilah´s lookout, she seems to be the center of it all. Putting aside the fact that she only very briefly talks about herself at one point in the story and how weird it is that we never get to meet her in the game, considering how much free time Henry has, (it´s really a quick trip to her lookout), here are several things that were very odd about her:
1. She left her lookout despite Henry´s pleads for her to wait. Sure, she says that the helicopter is waiting for her and she feels like she shouldn´t make it wait, but it´s still odd for her to (sort of) betray Henry like that. She says that she wouldn´t want to see Henry while "standing in Brian´s shadow" and that she couldn´t stand being in "this place" (meaning the entire area of the game) any longer. The whole part about her being so torn between leaving and waiting for Henry is pretty sketch in general, but it can totally be seen as her having mixed feelings towards meeting him, like being shy (people who have met someone after a long time of just talking or texting to that someone will understand that feeling) or (possibly) feeling guilt-ridden like Henry (which I will get to in the next point and later on).
2. Reports that Henry picks up talk about the fact that Delilah is still together with "Javiere" or however it´s spelled, the "sexy" boyfriend because of the breakup with whom Delilah claims that she decided to take the job at the firewatch. When Henry mentions what the report says to Delilah, she frantically tells him that whoever made it must be trying to mess with them. The way she says it definitely sounds sketchy and I have trouble believing her every time I see that part. We can´t know for sure, since the developers have said next to nothing about the true meanings of the story etc., however it is entirely possible that Delilah lied about her reason for being at the firewatch and is still together with her boyfriend or something similar (although that totally leaves her reason for being at the firewatch in the open) and feels guilty about her relationship with Henry, explaining why she manages never to meet Henry during the entire summer, not even in the end. Delilah literally escapes from Henry at the end of the game, she is a heavy drinker, we catch her drunk 2 times during the game, she also drinks when things are looking bad for her and Henry, eventhough she should probably be on high alert. Escapism is the main theme of the game, it´s also why we play the game itself, again another reason I really liked your article, you were pretty thorough about it.
3. Now, Delilah´s reaction to her and Henry being spied on and recorded etc. was pretty convincing. She drinks, exchanges walkie-talkies and is pretty shocked and stressed in general, believably so (unlike in point 2 ^). Wapiti station however, is not a sight that she should have missed. Aside from the grid on the floor, which would be easy to miss considering how far her tower is away, the big-ass tower standing next to the grid is clearly visible from her lookout.(the tent isn´t) It´s especially weird since there is a pulsing light at the top of it. The real happening of the research that was being done at Wapiti station is that a bunch of college students were researching elks in the area, it´s what the tracking collars were for. This is somewhat hidden in the game, since you have to go over Ned´s trapdoor to find the elk with the collar, but there´s also notes and other things that ground this fact, you can look it up online probably.
While these things are really weird and mysterious they can be chalked up to just about anything. Perhaps they´re just plotholes, inconsistencies in the story and game design, maybe there´s still things to discover about the game, but it could just be that no one has quite put all the puzzle-pieces of the story together yet. Even now I can´t remember all the things that didn´t quite make sense in the game, there were a ton.
Great article and all in all a game that definitely deserves a 10/10 in my opinion. It´s probably one of the only two games I´ve ever played more than 2 times. So fresh and different from all other games that I know. It will always hold a special place in my heart.
Well Henry clearly sleep talks maybe that's how Ned would found out information that wasn't spoken over radio?
You mean Ned might have been near Henry´s tower at night and Henry talked about personal info in his sleep? It´s possible, but still a stretch. I mean, who recites their biography in their sleep?
Well i mean it fits with the information we already have so its not as big as a stretch as say Ned having other contacts.
I know I'm late to the discussion but I enjoyed your analysis a lot in comparison to mine and thought you understood the game under the surface better than myself so I have something to ask. I bought the game this week and played through it twice after reading the main argument for the conspiracy side of the game, that Delliah was secretly communicating Ned as assumed during that call you are allowed to interrupt. This is my main point of confusion even after reading your analysis and other's opinions on the game's meaning and plot, I understand they added this to the story in order to feed the escapism, conspiracy mindset that the idea of the game constantly reverts to and it does it's job well at that however, it also fuels the conspiracy side enough to almost counter-act that effect. Sort of noticing this I don't understand why that was added to the story because after reading the detailed conspiracy arguments this main point of their stance assists in creating a legitimate argument for their case. I intially thought that it could create a lasting escapist feeling that'd linger to remind of the meaning of the plot or they wanted to add an ambiguous ending but after reading a few analysis it just doesn't seem from the perspective of learning about our behavior and improving that this feasible. Please, if anyone could offer an opinion on the topic even just telling me I'm wrong and explaining your rationale would be appreciated.
I made sure to read every note several times. Every time I picked up something new, I read over all the other notes in my inventory to compare and piece together some sort of conspiracy. Every moment of the game, searching for clues, trying to understand what this game is about. Even after watching all the credits and spitting me back to the home screen, I refused to believe it was over. I was in denial. Conspiracy was so far planted in my mind, I honestly believed the game was tricking me into believing nothing "big" was going on in that forest.
First reaction: What!? Its over? What happened? I was thinking some massive plot twist was going to reveal itself. At the very least, let me meet Delilah...
I sat down and just began to digest it all. Take it all in. Think deep about what I had learned. I understood that no big conspiracy ever revealed itself and all those thoughts had been tied up after finding Ned's home. Still finding it hard to explain what was going on at the research facility.
After an hour of digestion, I took to the internet and read this post. Abandonment. Escapism. Accepting reality. It really comes together and hit me pretty hard.
RING: As a player, I did not put on the wedding ring. I wanted to connect with Delilah more and I felt like it was in my characters best interest to move on from that point of his life. I wanted to run away from it and replace her with Delilah.
DELILAH: I was loosing trust in Delilah towards the end. Early and mid game, I would tell her everything and talk as much as possible but when the theme of conspiracy presented itself, I began to question who I was talking to. When I saw the homework paper that Brian and written about using a meteor shower and a HAM radio to communicate with people from far away, the idea planted in my head that I have never seen this person and she could be sitting anywhere in the world, using technology to send a radio signal to Henry's location. I stopped reporting a lot of what I found to her. It is crazy that I had those strong thoughts with no real proof or reason.
SIDE NOTE: This game would be great to play before starting the "Life is Strange" series. Abandonment and escapism play a big role there too, this game would amplify those aspects of LiS.
Hi Ewan, thank you very much for this, I love your Interpretation!
First of all: Sorry for my mediocre English.
I think you mentioned the most important aspects, but didn't mention the (in my opinion!) second most important word - after "escapism" - for the ending:
Catharsis.
The big fire at the end possibly stands for "purification" or "cleansing" as well as "renewal" and "restoration". Perhaps his time at the National Park could even be seen as something like a purgatory for Henry.
The whole place, where everything takes place, is burned down. Ned could tell his story and maybe "move on in life"...Henry maybe tries a "new attempt" in dealing with Julia and their parents and for Delilah it is about the same.
I recommend to read the article of "Catharsis" on Wikipedia or something...I couldn't explane it much better in a foreign language.
It is the conflict between passion and duty with the balancing of fervor(?) at the end.
What do you think?
Yes! I love it it! Totally agree!