Before Firewatch was a 3D world, it was a painting

In the beginning, there was a painting …
and little else.

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Campo Santo revealed itself to the world in September 2013 without a game. Veterans of Telltale Games (The Walking Dead) and Klei Entertainment (Mark of the Ninja) founded the studio, backed by the renowned Mac developer Panic.

Six months later, in March 2014, Campo Santo revealed its first project, Firewatch. Details were scant, but a single painting by Olly Moss, an artist perhaps most famous for his gorgeous Star Wars trilogy posters, set the visual tone that you can see above. An FAQ on the budding developer's official site revealed that former Double Fine Productions environmental artist Jane Ng was also at work on Firewatch.

At a 2015 Game Developers Conference session, Ng took the stage to chronicle her work on a game that she's still building. It's the story of constructing a fully 3D world for a "narrative exploration game," as she calls it. But before she could build anything, Ng had to study Moss' painting. Because, in the beginning, Firewatch was little more than that.

Scroll down to browse a gallery of Firewatch images and learn more about the game's development. Click on each image to read what Ng said about creating a world at once stylized, emotional and believable.

Characters

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Colors

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Mountains

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Firewatch rocks

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Firewatch cabin

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Skybox

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Wilderness

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Cabin

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