Original artwork, not a still
You are here, and it’s beautiful, and escaping isn’t always something bad.
— Firewatch · 2016
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
It is the argument of the whole game in one sentence. Henry has run to the forest to escape a life he could not fix, and Delilah, who is escaping too, tells him that being somewhere beautiful is not a failure. Players quote it as a gentle answer to guilt about stepping back from a hard situation, which is why a single radio voice in a lookout tower stuck with so many people.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for FirewatchShow the scene
Firewatch (Campo Santo, 2016) puts the player in the boots of Henry, a man in his forties who takes a job as a fire lookout in the Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming. His only contact is Delilah, an experienced lookout and his supervisor, who talks to him by walkie-talkie. A review of the game prints this line as a pull-quote under her name, and her first-day remark that people take the job to get away from something sets up the same theme. We could not locate the exact scene in a transcript.
Sources (2)
- Hypercritic: Firewatch reviewopening pull-quote and introReference checked
- Swarthmore Phoenix: Firewatch reviewparagraph on the openingReference checked
Context reviewed