It has been a decade since the release of Firewatch, a critical darling celebrated for its grounded narrative and beautiful environment. A subdued adventure game about a troubled man scouting fires in the wilderness, Firewatch has been described as “an adult game that deals with serious issues” and “a thoughtful, engrossing experience” that “shows the power and potential” of games. Its legacy is one of prestige, its narrative design studied to this day in games academia. In a sea of games about bloodshed and conquest, it is nonviolent and introspective; in a culture of grandiose stories, Firewatch is radically mundane. But the cultural conversation around Firewatch has been led by men; the game itself was written by men, and the majority of reviews and other pieces published about it were also authored by men. This has resulted in Firewatch’s most worrying quality, its treatment of women, going largely ignored. Like many other games, Firewatch creates a male fantasy where women can only be subservient or disappear.
The game takes place during a quiet summer in the Wyoming wilderness; protagonist Henry has taken a job as a forester, tasked with scanning for fires from his lookout tower. Despite being positioned as a hero, Henry is—at least on the surface—radically powerless in his own narrative. Any opportunity for him to exert control is thwarted by the game’s very design: In terms of gameplay, Henry is strictly limited to navigating terrain, picking stuff up, taking photos, and, of course, conversing. He is neither mechanically nor narratively capable of putting out a forest fire. As Henry is unable to change the world around him, Firewatch is primarily interested in his emotional landscape. It revolves around his personal development, specifically how he grapples with a tragic past. But Henry is only able to grow at the expense of the women in his life.
Firewatch opens with Henry meeting his future wife, Julia, for the first time. Depending on the player’s dialogue choice, the conversation can go like this:
“‘You…You’re pretty.’
‘YOU’RE pretty,’ she says, coolly.”
This exchange lays the game’s cards on the table: Firewatch features the cringey, agreeable dialogue of any other male fantasy. It’s creepy and uncomfortable when a stranger comments on your appearance, yet Julia is unfazed and endeared to this man whom she does not know and has no reason to trust. Firewatch gestures at exploring gender roles, but is critically unable to realize its female characters as complex, independent people.
Julia has little agency in her subsequent relationship with Henry. Through the player’s dialogue choices, Henry gets the final say in which dog they adopt regardless of Julia’s obvious preference, when they plan to have children despite Julia’s stated wishes, and whether Julia can accept her dream job in another state (no matter what the player decides, he makes it impossible for her to do so). The only argument the player sees the couple get into is caused by Julia coming home late after a night out with friends—the only time she is in command of her own life.
When Julia is diagnosed with early-onset dementia, Henry gains total control over her; he can choose to either admit her to a facility in their home of Colorado, or he can attempt to take care of her on his own (where he eventually locks her in the house so he can go flirt with a bartender and get a DUI). Julia’s family then brings her back to Australia after seeing their dire living situation. A living ghost, Julia’s sole narrative purpose is to drive Henry to live out a fantasy in Wyoming, and haunt him while he’s there.
Julia’s existence as a Henry-centric plot device rather than a person of substance is a pattern that continues with every female character in the game. Henry’s first task when he arrives at the lookout is to get two teenage girls to stop setting off fireworks in the dry season. The trail leading Henry to the girls is littered with empty beer bottles, a blaring boombox, and their bras and panties—the girls are skinny-dipping in the lake and have left abundant warning for anyone who may walk in on them. Through a walkie-talkie, Henry and his supervisor Delilah have an exchange that’s played as a joke at the expense of Henry’s masculinity because he isn’t comfortable with approaching naked underage girls. Yes, the girls are immature and reckless, seemingly oblivious to the idea that their actions have repercussions. But this doesn’t mean they aren’t deserving of respect and dignity.
When Henry confronts them, the girls’ indignation is portrayed as comedic and irrational rather than a reasonable emotional response. This scene exists to challenge Henry’s burgeoning fantasy of macho sheriffing; rather than getting to bask in his authority as a park ranger, Henry is, in his mind, rendered powerless over these girls who not only disrespect but are disgusted by him. The fact of the girls being underage is downplayed in order to emphasize Henry’s emasculation, but any woman who has ever been alone in a remote location with a strange man knows the girls did not have any power here at all. Rather than acknowledging the reality of the inappropriate situation, the game only takes interest in Henry’s feelings.
Delilah also exists solely to develop Henry. In a literal sense, Delilah serves as the sole vehicle of plot advancement by giving Henry his assignments. She also, for whatever reason, finds the sad married man attractive and seduces him (Delilah claims he is the only lookout she’s ever been interested in, though the truth of this statement is up for debate. Henry stops wearing his wedding ring). The majority of their conversations revolve around Henry, and Delilah is the only person through which Henry can perform the emotional labor that’s so crucial to the narrative.
While Delilah is Henry’s boss, and her high-up position affords her certain privileges, the game portrays her as a passive guide rather than a person of any influence. Her only source of power is her ability to withhold information, which the narrative ultimately punishes her for. Furthermore, the traits that are supposed to make Delilah a complex character simply mirror Henry’s. Like Henry, Delilah is self-serving and irresponsible: When the teenage girls eventually go missing, Delilah doesn’t want to deal with Henry becoming a person of interest in the investigation, so she covers up their encounter to the police. Henry and Delilah both struggle with their romantic relationships and their drinking habits, and they both respond to these problems by ignoring and avoiding them.
Delilah’s enjoyment of crossword puzzles is about the only unique trait afforded to her—even her love of drawing exists to remind Henry of how Julia loved to draw. You can guess the two women’s preferred subject matter.
While feminist critiques of Firewatch exist, most of the discussion around the game’s relationship with gender focuses on masculinity. Firewatch is praised for being insightful for its masculine gender exploration, but its refusal to look at feminine gender roles with the same critical eye leaves it reinforcing the same patriarchal ideals as the games it tries to subvert. The video game space is so toxically hypermasculine that quieter forms of misogyny go not just unnoticed but lionized.
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