Creating The World of Firewatch

NYU Game Center has shared a presentation by Jane Ng, the lead artist at Campo Santo, which focuses on the production process behind Firewatch. The artist explained why hyper-realistic, detailed assets are not that important when creating a memorable experience. The team should instead make a game feel real.

Jane modeled 23 different trees featured in the game, making them by hand as Speedtree was not integrated in Unity back then. She also mentioned that “very few games have pine trees, because of all trees in the world pine trees are the worst in terms of being made 3D.” 

The artist also talked about the importance of atmosphere over realism, mentioning some technical limitations which defined her workflow. What is more, in Firewatch objects and places were scaled based on what felt right, not accurate.