Detailed Analysis - Main Narrative
A Heartfelt Prologue
From the very first frame, we are treated to an incredibly touching but also saddening prologue that is split between frames from the past to the present. This prologue, accompanied by some beautifully made music, helps to give us an informative introduction to Henry, our main protagonist. These moments are what a prologue should be, short and sweet, focusing on the character-building moments and allowing us to learn a lot of background information about the characters and their circumstances.
The prologue that follows allows us to learn various and important bits of information, while also allowing us to tailor future events. Meeting in 1975, our main character Henry approached a woman named Julia with her friends and after a drunken attempt at striking up a conversation, they go grab a bite and then after a week, they are together. A fun relationship that drives the other nuts but in a good way and then they move in together eventually getting a dog.
Through 1979-1981, Henry and Julia go through some of the typical motions of a couple like deciding to want kids, getting into silly fights, and eventually work getting in the way. At one point the couple is mugged and Julia struggles to put a sentence together. The love this couple has for each other is built on mutual immaturity and shows many signs of how real it is, from wanting to have kids but then life getting in the way.
1982-1988, the young couple is mugged with Henry repelling the mugger after he kicks Julia’s dog and she’s unable to put a sentence together. Eventually, Julia begins experiencing episodes, indicating that she has early-onset dementia, a devastating disease. Enduring it for years, the pair slowly become exhausted as it seems neither can exist without the other Julia struggles to maintain herself and Henry begins drinking more.
1989-1990, finally after a long night out, Henry gets pulled over by a cop for DUI (Driving Under the Influence) and is arrested for the night he has no choice but to call his sister-in-law, who calls her parents. Visiting from Australia, Julia’s parents arrive to find Henry and Julia’s home in shambles and decide to take Julia with them to care for her properly. Exhausted and stretched thin Henry does not argue, instead eager to visit them soon. He eventually finds a flier for a job and takes it.
As we are being given this heartfelt and saddening story, we play Henry as he packs his bag and makes his way to Wyoming, Shoshone National Forest where he will be working as a fire lookout. A beautiful and peaceful place where Henry can just get away for a little while. During the prologue, we are treated to a relaxing and tranquil musical piece that helps to evoke the different feelings that are being felt through each part of the prologue. During this time, the player can take agency in actions that can alter how the prologue unfolds from choosing how to confront the mugger or deciding to be supportive or not to Julia getting a promising job offer.
The prologue was able to leave an immediate impact on the player and helps to establish the situation of its main character. Instead of drawing out Henry’s story throughout the main narrative, we learned everything we needed to know about him, within 5 minutes, which is difficult to do without losing the player’s interest.
An Exceptional Partnership
When he finally reaches his home for the next few months, Henry is instantly contacted by his supervisor, Delilah, a jolly and clever person who immediately strikes us as fun and pretty laid back. Throughout his stay at Shoshone, Henry’s only source of communication will be with Delilah, through his radio. The connection these 2 build with each other becomes the foundation for Henry’s ability to work in the forest as she is always on call. As Henry makes his way through Shoshone he can come across many discoveries in his duties as a forest lookout, like finding empty beer cans, to caves no one knows about.
A minority of the conversations that Henry and Delilah have are completely optional as it is up to the player to talk to her or not but the information that Delilah delivers as well as quips are a major reason for wanting to report everything you find, just so you can continue to have a conversation with her. The voice talents of Rich Sommer (Henry) and Cissy Jones (Delilah) are very remarkable. Even without seeing their faces, you can picture them just by listening to their voices and in the vast wilderness where we can’t see anyone else, being able to picture Delilah helps to beat the isolation.
As they start to uncover a mystery and deeper secrets within the Forest, Delilah becomes more of the voice of reason with Henry starting to spiral although she sometimes doesn’t help with the unease that develops. When Henry later finds what looks to be a surveillance outpost, he finds a log of all his movements and information about Delilah. At one point Delilah becomes frustrated and becomes a little erratic when Henry finds info about her.
As Henry and Delilah’s partnership is explored further we begin to see that their professional and plutonic relationship begins to show the traits of something more. Running deep into the forest from his broken marriage and being isolated with nothing but a charming and funny woman on the other end of the radio would be enough to make anyone begin romanticising a partnership. Delilah somewhat feels the same as she begins letting her guard down and becoming more casual with Henry. While it is never officially confirmed if they ever did have a romantic relationship after their ordeal we can certainly speculate that it could have grown into that in later events. The dynamic these 2 bring is brilliant and we as the player can dive into this partnership as much as we want as our exploration is rewarded with more fun and informative conversations.
A Curious Mystery
Underneath the beautiful and vibrant exterior of Shoshone National Forest, lies a hidden mystery that quickly puts Henry, Delilah and the players on edge over the next few months. As the pair begins to dig deeper into this mystery he begins to see signs that might help Henry and even Delila move on in their lives.
As Henry arrives at his tower he is immediately greeted by his supervisor Delilah via radio. Despite Henry’s tiredness, Delilah wants to ask him a few questions about him, instantly knowing that Henry took this job to run away from something. Henry and Delilah are a fair ways from each other but both can see the other’s tower in the distance and Delilah has binoculars which allow her to check in on her lookouts.
Day 1 - On Henry’s first day he and Delilah find that people are setting off fireworks, which is a big no-no. Investigating Henry finds out that it’s the work of 2 drunk teenage girls who have also decided to go for a dip in the lake. Henry manages to scare them off and marks it off as a job well done. On his way back Henry finds a shadowy shining a flashlight on him and quickly disappearing. Reaching his home, Henry finds his typewriter on the ground and finds that his tower has been broken into, informing Delilah, she will call it in.
Day 2 - The start of the new day has Henry investigating some down power lines. Following the utility line, Henry finds several beer cans along the line and a pair of panties with the words “Go To Hell” scrawled on them. From this evidence, we can determine that it was the teenage girls. Following the trash, Henry eventually finds a backpack belonging to “Brian Goodwin” the son of “Ted Goodwin” who was a fire lookout 3 years ago. Shortly we find smoke and find a campsite, with a shredded tent, torn clothes and camping supplies scattered. Henry finds a note from the girls and how they believe Henry wrecked their campsite and will be reported to the police.
Day 9 - During a lunch break, Henry is contacted by Delilah with some rather concerning news. The 2 teenage girls have been reported missing and Henry may have been the last person to see them, making him a person of interest, a worrying prospect.
In between these days, Henry goes about his standard duties, delivering food to other lookouts and just keeping himself busy all while continuing to build his friendship with Delilah. A large fire has started in the middle of Shoshone that the pair can choose to name. Henry also has a phone conversation with his wife Julia who seems to be in high spirits but misses him.
Day 76 - While going fishing Henry finds a clipboard, which is a written record of everything Henry and Delilah have been saying to each other. Henry also finds a dropped walkie-talkie but is then attacked. When he wakes up he finds the radio and clipboard gone and a worried Delilah. The only thing he can remember is the clipboard had “Wapiti Station” written on it, Delilah quickly realised it could be Wapiti Meadow, with Henry quickly heading that way.
The fact that someone could be watching and listening to both Henry and Delilah isn’t exactly comforting, as Henry is completely isolated and nobody would know if he was missing, save for Delilah. On his way, we get to learn a bit more about Brian Goodwin who left with his father Ted, like how Delilah enjoyed hearing about Brian’s nerdy habits. While looking for a way to get into a fenced area in Wapiti, the pair hear someone coughing on the other line. Most likely the stranger who knocked out Henry and has been transcribing their conversations. Delilah orders Henry to go back to his tower and lock himself in. Henry doesn’t argue, they are not alone and need to come up with a plan fast.
Day 77 - Delilah gets back to Henry without mentioning yesterday's events. She seems to be okay but there is a cadence in her voice, something that gives the impression that she is being watched or most likely she is being careful of what she is saying. Given the fact that someone seems to be listening in, Delilah is laying the groundwork for Henry to keep going without being watched. Delilah directs him to a location where she has hidden a radio that only Henry and herself have access to.
Now that they have a clean radio, Henry moves on to Wapiti. On their way, Delilah remembers a mistake she made. She reported that neither one of them knew about the currently missing teenage girls, a potentially dangerous lie. Not only that but whoever is watching and listening to them may know about this as well and, even worse, could be responsible for their disappearance.
Henry finds a massive comms tower which eventually leads to a campsite, filled with all sorts of equipment. A monitoring station of some kind, cots and it looks like the people inhabiting the camp had to leave in a hurry as it’s in a mess. Among other comms equipment and documentation of Henry’s movements, is an earthquake machine and a machine that monitors the barometric pressure (A Barometer measures the air pressure in an environment).
Investigating further, Henry finds a wave receiver which leads him to a folder that has information about Henry and Delilah and information that has never been exchanged between the 2, like info on Julia (Henry’s wife) and that Delilah is still with her boyfriend. Henry quickly leaves, hoping to be gone before whoever is watching them comes back. Almost as soon as he leaves he spots a fire in the distance that is the camp he just came from. Whoever that camp belongs to is covering up their tracks and they can’t stay there anymore.
While at his tower, Henry picks up a frequency from the wave receiver and a drunken Delilah encourages him to follow it, much to Henry’s dismay. Following the device, Henry finds a backpack tied to some kind of alarm system that activated when Henry took the backpack. In the backpack, Henry finds a key with access to a cave that he explored on his first day, which piques his interest but also continues to irritate him. While discussing this with Delilah, she thinks Henry is at the tower, only to realise that someone else is there.
Henry hurries back to find a Walkman, with a crudely cut recording of Henry and Delilah, implicating them in the surveillance campfire much to Delilah’s worry.
Day 78 - The original fire that started months ago has spread even further now. Speaking to a worried and distressed Delilah, they learn that someone pretending to be Henry just contacted another lookout, claiming Delilah knows what set the campfire. Distressed and worried that they could be arrested, Henry goes in search of the cave, now with the key, he has to unlock it. Entering, Henry is quickly locked into it by an unknown individual. Henry comes out on the other side, to report himself being trapped to Delilah.
Heading further, Henry finds a hideout that is kid-made, presumably Brain Goodwin. We find things like homework and a plan about how to get his backpack from a tree, that Henry found on Day 2. A question that raises itself is why would Brian leave so much of his stuff behind. We find a note indicating that Ned may have been pushing Brian to climb more and take bigger risks, showing that Ned may have hidden some climbing gear deeper into the cave.
Heading back to the cave's main entrance Delilah informs us that the teenage girls are safe, having hijacked a tractor for a joyride and ended up in jail. At least that’s one less thing that Henry and Delilah have to worry about. Descending into the cave with the tools he acquired from Brian’s camp, Henry finds a saddening sight, Brian’s dead body. He fell when trying to hide the gear from his father and seems to have been there for years.
Henry makes it out of the cave and reports Brian’s body to Delilah, much to her distress and anger. Delilah naturally blames herself as Brian should never have been out there in the 1st place and she had opportunities to report it but didn’t. One can hardly blame her, she liked the kid and didn’t want to spoil his fun and with Ted being experienced with climbing and hiking, she thought he would be okay. What she didn’t count on was Ted pushing his son beyond his limits in an unsafe environment.
Day 79 - Henry and Delilah are packing and are getting ready to leave as the fire has gotten out of control but there are still many questions lingering. While talking, Delilah hears the wave receiver and Henry decides to pursue it, one last time before they have to leave. Henry finds a cassette tap left behind and a rope for Henry to climb.
Playing the tape, Henry hears Ted’s voice. Ted has been keeping an eye on Henry since May and listening in to his conversations with Delilah which he enjoyed. When being taught how to climb by Ted, Brian didn’t place his anchor in properly and fell to his death. For the last 3 years, Ted lived in the forest away from everyone, not seeing the point of going back to the outside world.
Henry reports what he found to Delilah which frustrates Delilah even further as she blames Ted for getting Brian killed. Henry finds Ted’s bunker and explores even more. Ted wrote the reports that Henry found at the site and recorded everything he did to Henry and Delilah like hitting Henry over the head and trying to pit them against each other to stay hidden. Seeing enough Henry makes his way to Delilah’s tower for evac.
Delilah is evacuated before Henry got there. Henry puts on Delilah’s microphone tech hoping to speak to someone and he gets her. Henry and Delilah have one last conversation with each other, with the realisation that neither of them wants to come back. They discuss how Henry should go see Julia, even if they don’t recognise the person in front of them, it’s time for Henry to accept what’s happened and move forward. They share a final goodbye and Henry evacuates from the forest.
While the mystery of who was watching Henry and Delilah and the disappearance of those missing girls was compelling and unsettling it turned out to just be the actions of a father too scared to confront his actions, much like Henry. Henry took the job as a fire lookout to run away from his broken marriage and thought he could forget what was happening in the forest. Ned thought he could forget about what happened to his son but neither of them could run away from their failings. Despite Ned not being able to move on and deciding instead to head deeper into the forest, wanting to be left alone, Henry may have learned a great deal from his adventure and Delilah’s wise counsel. Hopefully, Henry can get past his fears and visit Julia to see how she’s doing, if nothing else to lay their relationship to rest and move on. A great deal has changed for Henry and Delilah, Henry hopefully moves on but Delilah, she can never go back to her job with everything that’s happened. From conversations, we can glean that she’s gonna start running as well and she’ll need to go on her path of acceptance.