In May 2014, the small group at Campo Santo was still in the initial stages of developing Firewatch, a first-person narrative exploration game – it can be referred to as a walking simulator, which they do, and without any negative connotation. The developers gathered at their offices in San Francisco, with some coming from nearby areas, while others traveled from as far as Vancouver, Canada, and Winchester in the UK. They packed their cars with beer, board games, and tents, embarking on a several-hour drive to Yosemite National Park, where, in the words of one of Campo Santo’s founders Nels Anderson, “We went camping in the goddamn woods.”
Although Firewatch was always intended to be set over 500 miles away in Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming, the team aimed to immerse themselves in a forest environment and experience the sensation of being enveloped and awed by nature. “All of us would say we were greatly inspired by that trip,” Chris Remo recalls. He reflects on thinking, “In a year and a half, this is the thing we will have hopefully captured some little part of.”