Firewatch
Intense overall intensityWhat's in it
Frequent strong profanity, including the f-word, in the casual back-and-forth between Henry and Delilah.
Alcohol appears in the world and in the story — beer and empty cans are found, characters drink, and a former lookout is described as a heavy drinker.
The story centers on grief, a spouse's early-onset dementia, isolation, a child's accidental death, and a man running from his problems.
No combat; the player is knocked unconscious by an unseen assailant and later discovers a body, but there is no fighting or gore.
Two teenage characters are described as swimming nude in a lake and their belongings are found; no explicit anatomy is shown on screen.
A sustained atmosphere of paranoia and being watched by an unseen figure creates unease, though there are no scares or monsters.
Minor illegal acts are shown: trespassing into a fenced research site, teens setting off fireworks, and a supervisor falsifying official reports.
Flirtatious radio banter between the two adult leads and passing references to teenagers skinny-dipping; nothing is depicted.
Who can reach your kid
What it is
Set in Wyoming's remote wilderness during the summer of 1989, this solo mystery is played from a first-person viewpoint. The player becomes Henry, who accepts seasonal work watching for fires from a lookout tower as a way to step back from a difficult domestic situation: his wife has developed dementia at a young age. Gameplay consists mostly of hiking through the terrain, poking around the environment, and communicating by radio with Delilah, a boss Henry never sees. Conversation options steer how the two characters connect while an odd puzzle takes shape near his post. Rather than being shown visually, the adult material surfaces through tone and language — regular harsh profanity, playful romantic exchanges between grown-ups, mentions of skinny-dipping teens and abandoned garments, drinking, and weighty topics such as loss, cognitive decline, the passing of a child, and a mounting feeling of surveillance. Players will not find fighting, blood, on-screen sexual imagery, or any multiplayer component.
How it's framed
Weighty topics receive a grave, serious handling, with Henry's retreat into nature portrayed as a way of processing painful emotions instead of a thrill-seeking journey. Cursing and alcohol appear as commonplace grown-up conduct, and what drives the unease is atmosphere and unsolved questions rather than bloodshed or startling imagery.
Details
- Developer
- Campo Santo
- Publisher
- Panic
- Released
- Feb 9, 2016
Similar games
We built this because we needed it
Balanced Play pools your kids' game time into one budget across Steam, Switch, PlayStation, Xbox and more. We're taking 100 founding families — free for life.
Claim a founding spot →Free for life for the first 100. No card, no spam.