Firewatch's audio commentary is now available as a free eBook

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The Campo Santo hiking trip turned 5 this month.

Firewatch
(Image credit: Campo Santo)

Now that we're all locked in our houses for the foreseeable future, Firewatch's publisher Panic is helping us revisit Wyoming's woodlands with a free transcription of the Firewatch Audio Tour.

Announced on twitter, the transcription is more than just a handy way to read some Firewatch dev insights. An introduction from Panic's Cabel Sasser explains that due to "time constraints", the original audio tour was missing subtitles, making it inaccessible for many people.

"So, over the course of a few years, I’ve gradually transcribed all of the Firewatch Audio Tour tracks, and they are all collected within, for you," Sasser writes. "My apologies in advance: there will almost certainly be typos and errors as I steamrolled towards the finish line."

Firewatch's Audio Tour arrived a few months after launch, adding over three hours of commentary from the game's developers and voice cast. Here, that translates to 175 pages of insights on everything from writing the game's tangled net of character relationships, to the fiddlier aspects of lighting and optimising Firewatch's hazy mountain trails.

Two years after Firewatch's release, Campo Santo teased stunning follow-up In The Valley Of Gods. Unfortunately, the developer was later snapped up by Valve—and while it looked like the game would be reworked as a Valve project, it was eventually put on hold as Campo developers moved onto Half-Life: Alyx and assorted Valve projects.

Natalie Clayton
Natalie Clayton
Features Producer

20 years ago, Nat played Jet Set Radio Future for the first time, and she's not stopped thinking about games since. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, she comes from three years of freelance reporting at Rock Paper Shotgun, Waypoint, VG247 and more. Embedded in the European indie scene and a part-time game developer herself, Nat is always looking for a new curiosity to scream about—whether it's the next best indie darling, or simply someone modding a Scotmid into Black Mesa. She also unofficially appears in Apex Legends under the pseudonym Horizon.