Understanding Firewatch's Brutal Ending.

Firewatch is known for taking players on a journey, and kicking them in the gut when its over. I decided to take apart Firewatch and give meaning to its controversial ending because believe Firewatch has one of the most powerful endings in modern games. It's almost too real to handle.

[hemprope]

The fact that we almost never see other people in the game gives it an odd, isolated feel.

[pondsst]

My Henry had a breakdown at one point and asked,
"How do I know if any of this is real?"
To which Delilah replied,
"I'm as real as the sky is blue."
It was dusk
The sky was orange and purple
Conspiracy confirmed

[kirakira]

The ending fits us the players. It ends, this wonderful little trip is over.. back to our reality, and to face it even if it hurts..

[paskky]

I knew we wouldn't meet in person from the beginning, If you pay attention, during the game you see no one's face. The girls are far and in backlight. The firefighters are gone when you have to go meet them. The kid is dead, face covered and at the end, the firefighter is wearing a mask that hides him completely.

[Caleb_Squatongim]

The ending is symbolic for facing your reality, the characters took the firewatch to escape their problems, and then suddenly, they are forced back into the real world, just like you are in real life.

[ventusxzephyr]

The worst part of the time was realizing that Ned couldn't even be bothered to give his son a proper burial before disappearing, he just left him there

[TH-xozx]

this game is proof that endings can be good and disappointing at the same time

[InFiiLtRaTor]

Regarding the alcohol stuff at the beginning of the game, not everybody's play-through embeds alcohol so deeply into Henry's personality and actions. The choices I made never resulted in a DUI, and her parents never came to the house to see a "mess". My house was never described as being in a messy state and I had the option to put Julia in a home or look after her myself. The prologue can be drastically different for each player depending on their choices.

[ladlevi]

A little off topic, but something about the game that once I discovered it I found greatly interesting: remember the letters you find in the supply boxes? Between some guys named Ron and Dave? Well, the letters (and as I recall, there's also a song?) tell another story similar, or even parallel to Delilah and Henry's.

Ron and Dave were rangers a year or two prior, who were friends with that same closeness created by the isolation of being alone the woods for extended periods of time. Dave had feelings for Ron, which were (at least to the player's and Dave's knowledge) unrequited. Dave had escaped to the park (again, like Henry) as he didn't want to deal with his homophobic family members, who he recently came out to (? it was along those lines.) But eventually, Ron leaves with his then-girlfriend, like Delilah does, (minus the girlfriend lol) leaving Dave alone. Just like Henry.
Their stories diverge when it's implied that Dave either commits suicide, or dies in a forest fire after getting drunk, rather than going home to face his problems (his homophobic family). Whereas Henry leaves, to face his problems with Julia head on. Their stories are parallel. It's not the main message of the story, but it's something i found interesting after I saw it pointed out. It also made me a certain type of sad... Ron tells Dave to come visit him sometime, but little does he know, Dave's dead. And ranger's suicides often go undiscovered, and with Dave's family situation and mentioned social isolation, it's unlikely many people would even notice he was gone, let alone be able to notify his friend from his ranger job. So Ron goes the rest of his life not knowing what happened to his old ranger buddy... it's a certain kind of tragic.

[trippingandbrowsing]

I'm here 4 years later to say that there is definitely an option where Henry does NOT get a DUI, and drinking isn't a big part of the exposition in the beginning.

[JustinTHuffman]

Emotionally, I was the other way around: I didn't want to meet Delilah. When she went off about Ned not looking after his son and facing his problems I was like, "ouch... I need to get back to Julia." Even before then, before leaving my tower I put my wedding ring back on and took Bucket Jr. (my turtle) and the couples photo with and Julia.

[irgendwelchedinge]

really good explanation, calmed my rage down right away ahhaha

[kevincheng]

I asked D to go without me in the end, so my Henry wasn't that upset.

[kingdomdom]

I was paranoid that D was in on all of it so never tried to connect with her. And remained loyal to Julia that whole time, no flirting etc. Made the ending just feel "meh".

[meking]

The thing that completely broke me in this game was finding Brian's body. When I saw the shoe when I went into the cave before getting the anchors I just had this gut feeling that it was Brian's shoe and he had died in there. I had no clue whether he had gone exploring into the cave and had slipped and fallen or whether he had see something he shouldn't (back when I thought this whole thing was a government conspiracy lol) and had been pushed down. I expected to find something: torn clothes, a rope, something that would have hinted at his death. When I turned that corner I never expected to actually find Brian's body. The rawness of it and the realisation that he was actually gone destroyed me. I would have handled his death a little easier if it had only been hinted at, rather than actually finding his corpse. The thing that hurt the most is how broken he looked. This kid who, probably moments before his death, had been happy with his science experiments and his Wyverns and Wizards, was now a skeleton. I knew this game was gonna be sad but jesus it took a real dark turn.

[koopaGG]

I thought you'd at least be able to find a picture of Delilah

[Numberer]

Wonderful video.

This is one of my favourite games. It immersed me more than any other. Never have I been more paranoid in a game than in Firewatch; every little sound and bush shaking could be this unknown entity following me and I was genuinely terrified.

The ending was, in my opinion: perfect. So many people hated it, but I...understood it. I accepted it. This wasn't some fantasy horror mystery sealed with a kiss from a new lover...it was reality. Harsh, morbid reality.

If I could wipe my memory and play any game again, Firewatch is that game.

[atinofspam]

I have a theory on why Delilah just up and left.

I think she actually developed romantic feelings for Henry, and couldn’t deal with meeting him face to face for fear of making a move on Henry to be rejected or ruin their friendship, and she also doesn’t want to take Henry away from Julia, hence her final suggestion that Henry should go to Julia.

[gufu]

By coincidence, I started playing Firewatch when I was feeling really bad about recently acting like a crappy husband. I'd just found out about something my wife was having a really hard time with, but instead of reacting with understanding and love, I was a complete selfish ass only worried about how it would affect me. I was feeling extremely guilty about how I reacted to her when I decided to distract myself by starting Firewatch. When I first got to the tower and Delilah asked what I'm running away from, because everyone who comes out there is running away from something, I immediately thought, "Oh crap. This is me."

Even then, I didn't realize until the end that the circumstances that led me to play this game just happened to make it pretty much the most meta experience possible. I just finished it tonight. Now excuse me while I go deal with my real life.

[NeoN-PeoN]

In my only play through, I felt really guilty about putting Julia in a home. So I just answered for Henry like I would - I asked HER questions, talked about my dog, talked about Boulder. I avoided connecting to D because I considered it a guilty distraction. I never WANTED to meat D, and was worried the game was going to make me. Then it got crazy and I didn't have to worry about it. The game let me go through it making 0 connection and I wonder if the game wasn't kind of a commentary about handling emotional things as I do to a

I feel I should mention that at my end, I asked her to come to Boulder with me and she said she was going somewhere else but may stop by. She didn't mention Julia at all cause I NEVER DID!