Are Video Games Abusing "Mysteries"?

I'm not sure exactly how to broach this topic, so I feel like I can only start at the beginning.

The first time I heard of the game "Firewatch" was during the infamous "What Is Firewatch?!?" humor of the Giant Bomb Live Panel a few years ago. I heard the name and potentially looked up some information about it, but otherwise I put it out of my head. It was a short while later that my brother got me interested in the game in earnest. He directed my attention to a number of previews gushing about the potential of the game and I couldn't help but get excited. The writeups were pushing all the right buttons on me. From the previews, Firewatch was a game about mystery. Likening the title to the television show Twin Peaks, the previews promised a story about a man who chooses to go into the forest and finds himself in the middle of a growing mystery. Many of the game's previews tease that the plot centers around the supernatural.

If you've played firewatch (ultra-minor spoiler), you know that while those previews aren't exactly wrong headed, they ARE absolutely baffling. Nothing in Firewatch is even remotely like Twin Peaks and there is absolutely nothing supernatural in firewatch.

I absolutely hate Firewatch and I wish I could get a refund for Firewatch. But that's not the point of why I'm writing this. My point, and what I would like to talk about is this:

Firewatch is almost completely unreviewable.

One of the things that I really like about Jeff Gerstmann is that he is one of the few reviewers who reviews games in terms of buying advice. Many reviewers consider themselves in the position of being teachers at "Video Game U" and they feel like it is their job to give a score to a game as though they are grading an assignment. Jeff has always been clear that he scores games, and writes text about them, with the intention of communicating whether or not someone should spend money on the title. The problem with Firewatch, and games like it that revolve around a mystery, is that to talk about the plot of the game is to ruin the game. On a fundamental level, to talk about the thing that makes Firewatch a poor game, the resolution of it's plot, is to spoil the game. The mystery is, largely, the ONLY reason to play the game. All of the emotions that arise during the game are built around not knowing the true nature of what is happening. To know the true nature of the plot is to ruin all of the suspense, fear, mistrust, and paranoia that the game attempts (and succeeds) in evoking from the player. And yet... the ending undoes all of that. It matters more to some people than to others, but I have yet to see ANYONE who says the game's ending wasn't underwhelming. (I would say "terrible".)

So how do you review something like that? How do you communicate to someone that the entire worth of a game's experience, and whether or not you will enjoy it, depends entirely on the last ten minutes of gameplay? and to comment on that 10 minutes in any way is to ruin the entire game for the player. To even say, as I said previously, that the plot of the game isn't supernatural in any way is to spoil the game, minorly, because I have limited what the POTENTIAL mystery in the game can be. The problem becomes worse when, as is the case with Firewatch, some of the previews for the game are actively misleading as to what the game actually IS.

Mysteries are, in some ways, unfair to the audience. They are cheap. Or, they CAN be cheap. A player who is propelled through a game based on wanting to know the answers to questions that are raised by the game is doing most of the work for the writers. The audience is concocting theories, meaning and relevance in an attempt to solve the mystery for themselves. Every little detail that the game serves up has meaning and relevance for the player that the designers may never have thought of or intended.

I can't help wondering if that's why SO MANY video games these days are mysteries? Much like an MMO propelling a player though the game not on the strength of it's moment-to-moment gameplay but instead on the promise of some unknown next-level skill to be bestowed around the next corner of a level-up, video game mysteries use the unknown to keep the player moving through a game when they might not actually be having any fun doing it.

Bioshock comes to mind. While I think both BIoshocks are actually great mysteries with satisfying conclusions, the moment-to-moment gameplay in each one isn't very good. I found myself having little-to-no fun in the last third of both games and becoming frustrated with the gameplay because all I really wanted to do was see the conclusion of the story.

So my questions are these:

Do you find yourself having problems deciding whether or not to buy a mystery game?

How much do spoilers matter to you when it comes to Mystery games, and do you avoid reviews before you play them?

Do developers of Mystery games have a responsibility to articulate the scope of their game in the preview phase so that customers aren't being misled into buying a game that they think is one thing but is, in reality, something else?

Ok not ready to write a full response to this right now but I will say this, I guess I'm the first person you have encountered that wasn't underwhelmed by the ending. It certainly wasn't what I was expecting when I started but coming from the Campo Santo guys I knew it was going to be more personal and introspective rather than some earth shattering revelation about the nature of the forest. I really enjoyed the interplay between the characters and how the game dealt with Henry's "escape" from his life. As for reviewing the game I think the moment to moment exploration, the surprise, paranoia and dialogue matters as much as the ending and I really enjoyed my time with the game before it was over. I might write more when I have some time but in short I disagree with this.

@bananasfoster said:

I mean a walking simulator turned out to be about walking, what did you expect?

@bananasfoster said:

No it doesn't. If you felt those emotions, you felt those emotions.

Well, I mean, you can't use that tack. The "you expected something other than what you were buying" tack. I fully understood what firewatch was from a gameplay perspective. None of my problems with Firewatch have anything to do with the fact that the game features walking.

I'll just jump in to say that I loved the ending as well. Having a climactic/cathartic ending where everything is neatly resolved would go against all the themes the game has established from the beginning.

But what those emotions are predicated on does not matter?

FIrewatch Spoiler:

@bananasfoster: I will just never understand you people who believe the ending is all that matters.

Endings put previous events in a new light, yes, but they don't change your original experience of those events.

I don't like mystery games for the reasons you've pointed out, the mechanics aren't the focus, and mechanics are most important to me.

The biggest problem with those games are that they're making very divisive stories with little mechanics to back it up. If you're not into the setting/story then what is there? At least a movie with a story you don't like is only two hours and it's a passive experience, but a game can be far longer and you actually need to work your way through. That kind of game is fine, it's just not for me.

And with reviews/spoilers of any kind, you either want to know enough to be comfortable with buying it inherently devaluing the experience, or you want to be completely surprised and take the gamble. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

As far as telling the public about their game, I think so long as yoou take any PR with a grain of salt and they're clearly not lying to people like saying they have Gears of War and put out Firewatch then they can do whatever. I just wait and see what people say after it comes out. No Man's sky is a good example of a game that has mystery too it, but the moment to moment mechanics are a mystery, so I'll just wait to see what the game actually is before I make a choice.

Well, because, as I was saying before, the end of the game puts the game in context. The danger of making a mystery is giving the player time to construct a better story in their head. Then, if your resolution isn't satisfying, the only thing you are leaving the audience with is disappointment that your story wasn't as good as anything they came up with.

The first question that any writer asks themselves about what they are writing is, "why does this story need to be told?". "Why does this story exist". A story has to have a POINT or else it's just a waste of people's time. When a game presents a story and then rescinds it, it's just denying it's own reason for being.

if you can't understand people who say the ending is all that matters, I similarly cannot understand the idea that the player coming up with a story that the developers never wrote is something to give the developers credit for.

@bananasfoster said:

But they DID write it. They specifically highlight certain story beats so that you would do this. You think they didn't want you to form your own opinions about what is happening? You think they don't know you believe this is going to turn out to be some sort of conspiratorial/supernatural plot? They whole point is they are giving you those expectations and then subverting them. If you don't like the subversion aspect, fine, but don't take away their due credit.

The mystery isn't a big deal; its how it delivers its message in the end, and Firewatch didn't come together at all.

There's an entire genre of books called "mystery".

Would you hold book reviews and authors of mystery books to the same level of scrutiny as Firewatch/Campo Santo/reviewers?

I don't think anyone is abusing mysteries, I think you just didn't like that you got stung by an ending you felt (and I agree) was unsatisfactory. You say yourself you liked the mystery of Bioshock but didn't like the gameplay, I agree with that too. Would you have liked Bioshock to instead be a 5 hour walking simulator?

Firewatch was sold on it's mystery, the same way a mystery book is sold on it's mystery too. You're given very little in terms of set up, but it's enough to get you interested. Sometimes the ending is good, sometimes its not. But it's not an abuse

I see people saying this from time to time about games that do not make good on things that they set up. I feel like this is a misunderstanding of what "subverting expectations" means.

"Subverting expectations" is somewhat of a sub-catagory of a plot twist. A plot twist, in it's essence, works by allowing the audience to come to conclusions that the story did not actively make. This leads the audience to say, "AH! I'M the one who made the mistake!". The best plot twists are the ones that have all the clues out in plain sight, but that the viewer simply interpreted wrongly. But the key is that ALL THE CLUES ARE VALID.

It is not a plot twist when a work lays out a bunch of clues and then simply never makes good on them. This becomes the story teller actively misleading and antagonizing the audience. Bad mystery novels will frequently do this, when the solution to the mystery involves a character who received little to no attention in the book and the detective pulls extraneous information that was here-to-fore unmentioned to finger the criminal.

When a game is actively and purposefully misleading, it's not "subverting expectations". It's antagonizing the player. There's nothing clever or novel about that.

@killacam:I completely agree with you, but it's easy to see how they might for some people. The argument that if the ending is bad it invalidates the journey is a valid one. Brad's feelings on Metal Gear Solid V are an example of that. (I won't go into detail here, he gets into it on the spoilercast) Again, I agree with you. The journey for me is the important part.

@bananasfoster: I completely disagree with you about Firewatch. I loved the game, and I think I'm one of the few people who really liked the ending. I felt that that it fit my version of Henry and Delilah's relationship remarkably well. I digress though.

Reviewing Firewatch is a bit of a conundrum, sure, but maybe reviewing a game like Firewatch vs. a game like, say, The Division requires two completely different styles of review. Firewatch is a 20 dollar interactive short story with themes of paranoia and mystery, set in the isolated woods of Wyoming. That might be in the opening paragraph of a review. If that sounds at all interesting to you then I think you should buy the game and experience it on your own before reading the reasoning behind the score (if there is one). Now whether or not you enjoy that experience is a different story, but you still had the experience. And while I believe with fiction that even a bad experience is worth something, the fact remains that it cost 20 dollars, which is relatively cheap for a game, and you never have to experience it again. At that point, I would say go back to reviews and compare your ideas with the reviewers. A review for a game like Firewatch is less buying advice, in my eyes, and is more about subjective experience. It may influence some purchases, but it's real value comes from comparing the reviewer's experience with your own. For something like The Division, with it's large open world, complex intertwining mechanics, and constant combat, reading a review becomes more important because value is more important. A player spending 60 dollars on The Divsion is probably much more concerned with how much they can wring out of it than they are when they spend 20 dollars on Firewatch, and as a result the knowing the experience of a trusted reviewer is paramount for them when deciding what games to buy. With Firewatch or Gone Home, if the premise grabs you, dive in. See the story, interpret it, and decide whether or not you thought it was successful after the fact.

There's a much larger essay here about the importance of reviews in a modern context and how people perceive reviews of smaller games compared to "AAA" titles, but that's for someone more clued into this industry than I am to write. Either way an interesting topic of discussion.

I think this is the crux of it. I was talking about Firewatch (and Firewatch's reception) with a friend recently.

We're both huge movie/TV/book fans as well as games and both of us had no problems with Firewatch's ending. We both help run a movie forum and agreed that mystery thrillers and dramas in the non-interactive medium tend to have a different sort of scrutiny placed on them.

I didn't have a problem with Firewatch's ending (although I'm not uncritical of it), possibly because I took the game for a piece of interactive fiction? Not sure.

Justin McElroy brought this up on the DLC Podcast a few months ago. He liked Firewatch, but he made the interesting comment that even though he's been reviewing games his entire life, he feels unqualified to discuss firewatch because the terms on which is must be critiqued are not the skillset that he has spent a lifetime developing.

Easy answer, no.

Not only would I, I feel like EVERYONE would. Or, most everyone anyhow. I feel like films that are constructed in the same way that Firewatch and Gone Home are would receive VERY negative reviews. Can someone offer up some examples of other media that does this? That is to say:

The only work I can think of off the top of my head is Shutter Island, but even that doesn't quite map because Shutter Island at least has a plot twist at the end to make the story have SOME arc.

But mystery books are a big thing. So are mystery movies and mystery tv shows. Some people like them, other's dislike them and some would even hate them. Not many could pull off what you have in the spoiler because honestly that is kind of a problem ending that nobody likes, but that doesn't mean that the creators are exploiting or abusing mystery. It just means they can't think of a good ending. Look at how people reacted to the ending of Lost. That show had some good mystery for a while but a terrible ending and people rightfully called them on it, just like people do with Firewatch.

I'd still recommend to people to play Firewatch, but I've warned anyone I've recommended it to that I hated the last 30 minutes or so and the ending and that I'd probably say to wait for a price drop, but I enjoyed 90% of that game a great deal.

Most good mystery needs a twist, the unfortunate thing for Firewatch was that it's twist was a red herring.

Subverting expectations and plot twists are not the same thing. You have again highlighted the successes of the writing, rather than the failures. The story is written with many exciting and intriguing red herrings that purposefully suggest there will be a plot twist, and then it is revealed that nothing is as exciting or intriguing as it seems, and that sometimes the conundrums we face are just sad and anticlimactic. We may go to the woods looking for answers, and maybe the answers we find aren't the huge revelations we wanted. In that way, it has subverted your expectations, which you personally did not like. The story was successful whether or not you enjoyed it, because it did exactly what it set out to do: it made you feel the kind of hollow disappointment that the protagonist feels at the end. That's just the way it goes sometimes. Sometimes things aren't for you. Sometimes you just don't gel with some stories, through no fault of yours or theirs.

Lastly, to hang the entire success or failure of Firewatch on how it resolves itself is to completely invalidate the moment-to-moment experience of playing the game, which is both wholly unfair and, for many (myself included), was a fulfilling experience entirely on its own regardless of the ending. As I have said to several others, there are bits of dialogue and performance in that game that come back to me and play through my head like the lyrics to a favorite song. It was that good for me. Did I get the ending I wanted? No, I don't think so. Am I satisfied with the game? Yes, because I enjoyed the journey to the ending, and I was okay with what the game did because I recognize that it succeeded in doing what it was trying to do.

I am a huge fan of mysteries, and I read them, watch them, and play them at every opportunity. When Firewatch sucked me in with its mystery setup, I was all sorts of excited to see how it was going to wrap up. But then, when the ending came, I remembered how the game began and saw what was really important here: not who was spying on these people, but why our protagonist was there in the first place. Firewatch is a success. Is it pleasant for everyone? No. Is it baiting players with its marketing? Maybe. Is that any different than any other media? Watch a few movie trailers sometime. Mystery is a hallmark of storytelling through human history, and to say that video games (or, in this case, just Firewatch I guess) are abusing them is just absurd.

I only want to say one thing about reviews of Firewatch and that is that based on Giant Bomb's review of Firewatch I knew that the story would not deliver on the "lurking mystery under the surface" vibe that I got from the Quicklook and thus I knew it wasn't for me. Alex more or less explicitly said that, without saying anything spoilery. So, I don't think you have that much ground to stand on with that aspect of your argument.

I will say that the "mystery" or I think a better word is "mysterious" trope of video games is often founded in arbitrary restrictions that obfuscate things you should know, either because you should possess some knowledge or memory of your situation (rather than being dropped in tabula rasa) or because of lacking dialogue - either your character isn't permitted to ask the right questions or the people he asks are unrealistically unwilling to answer them. Withholding critical information is a much "cheaper" way of generating a mystery than actually generating a mystery that feels organic or likely, and that is a shortcut that has bothered me from time to time.

Well, I guess you could say that, but perhaps I was in the wrong place at the wrong time because I follow Alex on Twitter where he literally said, "I just posted my review of Firewatch. That said, if you have any interest in Firewatch, don't read it. Just go buy Firewatch."

Is this not true of all media, though? Especially film and television? "No time to explain!", etc.

I think the attitude on parts of the internet toward the end of Firewatch mirrors that around the end of the TV show LOST. A lot of people feel like neither property delivered on the mysteries that were present for much of the experience. And the more I talk to people about both LOST and Firewatch, the more I realize that the people who came out of each disappointed are people who cared first and foremost about the mysteries, the plot twists, the overarching story.

The thing is, neither LOST nor Firewatch are really about the mystery at all. They are primarily about flawed, damaged characters that develop relationships and learn to be better (or sometimes don't). The mystery is really just a backdrop for character development. I enjoyed both LOST and Firewatch tremendously, but I'm also someone who generally looks for well-written characters and good character development first in my storytelling. There are way, way more great character beats and moments in both stories than there are cool plot twists.

That's why I feel like both of these stories are ultimately successes, and why I found the ends of both very satisfying. The ends of both stories are focused primarily on wrapping up the story of each character and less about wrapping up the overall mystery.

@kcin: All media can do it, but other more mature media tend to be better at providing sufficient reason for their lack of explanation.

@bananasfoster: That is definitely a fair complaint to make against Alex. I recall seeing that on the front page. It just so happens that my taste in games doesn't mirror Alex's well enough for me to just take his word like that, so I read it anyway.

I agree 100% with your aligning LOST and Firewatch. Battlestar Galactica belongs on that list as well.

Battlestar Galactica was one of the greatest shows in all of television but it's ending rendered many die hard fans to regard as a "don't bother watching" all because of the ending.

Just say it.

If I care about preserving the mystery, I'm obviously going to buy the game, and therefore don't need a review.

If I don't know if I want to buy the product or not, I want to hear what's good about it, and not just "Oh it gets good later, trust me!"

Jade Empire is one of the best written games I've ever played. The core plot twist of the game is that (and I'll spoil this because it's a 15 year old game and it's germane to the discussion) your player character has been trained from birth to be the greatest fighter of all time by your wise, benevolent kung fu master. Your style is so far above everyone else's that everyone remarks that your style looks like it is full of holes, but when they go to attack you, the holes are not there. It turns out, in the end, that your master is actually the evil villain of the game and in training you, he programmed you to be easily taken down by someone who knew how to exploit the holes in the style. He used you and now he is going to destroy you.

This is a GOOD version of a plot twist and subverting expectations because the game seeded the roots of the story early on. The player has expectations, but those expectations are ones that they formed for THEMSELVES. The game specifically said over and over again that your character's style had holes. The game telegraphed your master's evil turn with clues. But your confidence in your interpretation of the story made you overlook the truth.

This is a 180 degree difference from something like Firewatch, which sets up a story and forces a player to down a particular path only to turn it's back on the story it set up. The game allows you to make choices, but never any choices that will subvert the faux mystery they are trying to force on you.

I just...don't think that's true. If anything, more mature storytelling tends to be better at providing sufficient reason, but this sort of trope is used on a regular basis in all media, from novels, to comic books, to TV, to film. Video games just have weak storytelling more often than other forms of media (save for maybe television), but let's be fair: video game storytelling is informed by its predecessors.

@bananasfoster: I edited your post with a spoiler block. I know it's an older game, but try to avoid dropping the endings and major plot twists of random games when you can help it. Especially when people aren't expecting to see anything about it in a given topic. Using spoiler blocks only takes a second.

Thanks

This reminds me a lot of the ME3 backlash. I found the mystery's resolution immensely unsatisfying, but still enjoyed most of my time with the game. Disappointment at 30-minutes of the game doesn't suddenly invalidate the joy I found exploring the wilderness, my emotional investment in Henry and Delilah's evolving relationship, or the exciting tension I felt when the mystery was still new and full of possibilities. If you're deciding to hang your enjoyment of a game entirely on a single facet of what it has to offer you, then you're just setting yourself up for a letdown.

And I don't think there's anything about this game being a mystery that makes it any more difficult to review. It's really no different than offering spoiler-free criticism for any plot-driven piece of entertainment. If a reviewer didn't enjoy the story's resolution, if they felt it failed to stick the landing, there are plenty of ways for them to articulate that without spoiling a single thing.

One of the lines of thought regarding mystery / detective stories that I don't personally hold, but still respect greatly is this: "The ideal mystery is one you would read even if the end is missing."

The purpose of many mysteries is not deliver a meaningful and satisfying ending. The plot is largely secondary to the world and characters it brings to life. Their goal is to make the moment to moment happenings of the story speak to us and make us think about the world we ourselves in habit. As someone that has not played Firewatch, but read enough about its story, I think it goes down this road well enough.

That all said, I need to ask: how exactly are video games abusing mysteries? Are you claiming that developers are purposefully using using mysteries to make their games harder to review, and sneak bad products out with limited scrutiny?

Well, not to turn this into a Firewatch review, but that's not the only reason that I disliked the game. I played the game on PS4 on day 1. In my experience with the game, coming off of The Witness, it was just a garbage experience. I found the controls to be fiddly. On PS4 the game has a strange, awkward setup that is supposed to make the user feel like they are using a Walkee Talkee, but it never felt good or natural. I figured out you could use the D-pad a little later into the game, which made it better, but for a 4 hour game... not knowing that up front hurts the experience. I also found the turning and movement to be fiddly and weird. They were, I guess, trying to make it feel like you were in a body so your character can only turn for a small radius (turning his head) before the speed JUMPS to a faster clip (to, I guess, simulate his body turning.) Again, just super weird and fiddly. The graphics were horrendous. I kept reading reviews were people said the game looked gorgeous and I found myself having NO IDEA what they were talking about. On PS4, before this apparent patch, it looked like an original Xbox game. And I'm not being snarky, it literally looked like Fable 1. There is a specific point in the game where you can walk up to a lookout tower where you are supposed to see the forrest sprawling out below you. I get to the lookout tower and it's just a flat texture as far as the eye can see. It looked like a mid nineties flight simulator. Then I turned to leave and as soon as I turned about 30 degrees... *pop* the forrest appears. I turned to look back at it and *poof* forest goes away. I did that a few times because it was funny, but really it's just shameful. It looked like the forest was hiding from me. Like a Boo from Mario.

And then, yeah, the story that I found poorly resolved and the random interactivity that serves no purpose.

Don't get me wrong, the Henry/Delilah story was fantastic. But I feel like people don't speak enough about the fact that that story has absolutely nothing to do with the core mystery of the game. The villain and his baffling motivations for doing what he is doing are what I call the poorly constructed story.

You have it completely backwards dude. The mystery is not the point of the story, the Henry/Delilah dynamic is. Not the other way around. That is why the mystery devolves into nothing: to drive home that there are no revelations to be found in the woods, only the same baggage we entered the woods with. This isn't a bad plot twist, it is a subversion of ours (and Henry's) expectations that we'd find something new and exciting here, when the truth is that nothing new and exciting will ever fully save us from the sad truths we live with (Henry's wife, Delilah's distance, the death of the boy).

This story was not for you. It's okay to just not like something without it being a terrible thing. Lots of people really liked Firewatch, and thought it was very effective. The part that was very effective, though, is the part that you hate the most, because you wanted something else. That's totally fine. Not everything is for everyone.

I don't feel like that makes any sense, though.

"The mystery is not the point of the story", I definitely get that, since as you mention it devovles to nothing. But if there is an element to a story that is unnecessary, that element should be eliminated. This is just a design principle in general. Firewatch didn't HAVE to have the mystery. The story would have worked and, arguably, would have worked better without it.

You claim that the faux mystery is meant to drive home that "there are no revelations to be found in the woods" but that is an out-of-nowhere theme to bring up. Who thought there were answers in the woods? Henry? He's in the woods because he's running away from life, not because he's looking for answers. *I'M* certainly under no misapprehension that there are answers in the woods. And in getting swept up in the mystery, Henry never expresses any belief that a solution to the mystery would bring any answers.

I feel like you are taking the end note of the game, that the mystery amounted to nothing, and then trying to retroactively make it mean something about the game. But I don't believe the game justfies that interpretation. The mystery amounting to nothing doesn't mean anything to the game. As you said, Henry and Delilah's relationships is what the game is about.

That's simply not true. Particularly in works that attempt to subvert expectations, its ability to provide said false expectations and thus allow the reader to essentially let down his or her guard against the actual point is very much an important aspect of some parts of literature.

The mystery is necessary. It is a metaphor for Henry's realization that he isn't going to find anything in the woods.

"Running away from life" and "looking for answers" are a semantic difference here. Henry is looking for something else. He doesn't find it. He is confronted with that fact when the search for the truth behind the game's mystery is that there isn't one. Again, the mystery's resolution is a metaphor for Henry's situation.

I don't feel like I need to reach in the absolute slightest in order to glean what I have from this game. My feelings on the story remain clear, focused, and singular. The mystery amounting to nothing is the very essence of the story, and is essential in framing the nature of Henry and Delilah's relationship. It sought out to subvert your expectations, and it did, and you don't like it. The fact that you still think that the mystery was pointless because it amounted to nothing speaks to that fact. That's all there is to it.

I feel like I have repeatedly articulated why I (and many others) feel that Firewatch succeeds, so I'm going to step away from this conversation now.

Baffled.

Can you explain to me why just because something is "subverting expectations" it does not need to be properly set up or explained? Just announcing "subverted expectations" is not, in and of itself, a get-out-of-jail-free card for bad construction.

Of maybe that is the impasse we find ourselves at. I don't accept something in a story just because it's the opposite of what would usually be there. That seems insane to me. By that logic, it would be fine that Rey can do all the things she can do in The Force Awakens if they never explained any of it because, hey, "subverting expectations", right? It doesn't need to be set up or explained just so long as it's the opposite of what you normally see!

In a two hour walking similar whose story is its only real selling point, and the mystery is one of the main compelling things in the story: the ending doesn't mean everything, but it means a whole lot. How many TV shows have you seen, or know others who've discussed them, were enjoyed at first and then all that enjoyment was completely lost in hindsight when nothing paid off (Lost, for example)? I bet you've heard that a lot, or experienced it... I have, and all my TV/film/gamer friends have. Any story with a crappy or underwhelming ending definites mars the whole experience, for most people!

Quite the opposite. The subversion of expectations is more dependent on a setup than more direct forms of story telling. The writing needs to place you in a specific state of mind, seeking specific things, before it pulls the rug out from under you in some way shape or form. When that moment happens, sometimes you're left with a eureka moment. Sometimes you simply simmer with annoyance. Obviously, you fall into the latter category here. It is not a get-out-of-jail-free card, but instead invites even more scrutiny.

Subversion of expectations is not to simply place in opposite what is normally there. That is an incredibly superficial and reductive way of describing that particular method. It is about turning what we expect on its head it order to say something about that thing which we expected in the first place. In Star Trek DS9, by subverting the expectations that the Federation is a constant source of unquestioned good, it challenges both the show's, and our ideas of government. In Evangelion, by subverting the expectations that pilots of world saving giant robots are always gun-ho soldiers of optimism, it challenges viewers of the genre to think about the nature of heroism in human beings. Hell, the show goes a step further by throwing in expected unquestioned weapons of salvation that are themselves a terror, and a supporting character that embodies all those attitudes people wanted in their protagonist who ends up being even more of an emotional wreck. In Firewatch, it challenges us to think about the fruitfulness of our own forms of escapism.

You can say that attempts at subversion often results in failure, and thus a worse product than if they creators had simply played it straight. That's all well and good. Hell, there are plenty of critics of the above examples that lambaste them for just that reason among others. However, to claim, as you seem to be doing, that it is a mark of a creator trying to get away with something by using a catch-all to fill in holes is much harder is something that's much more difficult to claim.

By the way, I still want an answer to the question: how are video games abusing mysteries?

I can't speak to Evangelion, but I can speak to DS9. You are mostly right, if slightly overwrought, about the themes of DS9. But, again, DS9 sets up it's subversion of expectations with proper construction. Whether it's a Starfleet Officer who is doing untoward things because the ends justify the means, or Sisqo himself doing the same, the show both explains WHY those characters have to make those choices and then adequately examines the effects of those behaviors. This is my whole point.

As to how videogames are abusing mysteries, first, I never said they were. I ASKED if they were. It's a question. As to how they MIGHT be abusing mysteries, it is a matter of introducing a bunch of ideas to get a player interested in a play experience, get the player to ignore the fact that the game may not be fun to play, offer up a limp resolution to the plot, and ultimately rely on the mystery and the players curiosity to provide most of the gameplay experience and the thrust that propels the player through the game.

As a writer, I don't have to actually WRITE a compelling story, I merely have to SUGGEST one.

@bananasfoster: Actually, from what I could tell, your point was "But if there is an element to a story that is unnecessary, that element should be eliminated." It seemed to serve as one of the your chief grievances against the ending of Firewatch, and your response to defenses of the game's ending.

The thing is, "In the Pale Moonlight" is also entirely unnecessary, and should be removed by that definition. It did nothing to move the story forward outside of bringing an extra faction into the war, a plot point that could have been inserted in another variety of ways. The characterization of Sisqo also didn't exactly carry over to any of the remaining episodes either. What it did do was, for a moment, the show shined a different light on his character, and that of the Federation. It simultaneously gives us another lens with which to examine the previous actions of the character. It doesn't take away from the character's past actions, but we can now think about them in a slightly different way in terms of what his internal values truly were.

The ending to Firewatch is similar. The ending has you look at the characters and all that they have done in a different way. It doesn't replace your previous experiences, but it gives you a new lens. This is all of course in addition to the fact that the game can be viewed holistically, with the ending not simply adding to past experiences, but also serving as an interconnected piece to some larger message. You are free to dislike that, but you shouldn't dismiss it as a cop-out when it is arguably the more difficult path to take.

As for why I was adamant on you answer your own thread title, it is because it seemed clear what narrative you were trying to spell out through your original post, but found it odd you didn't explicitly state it at any point and wanted to be sure that was in fact actually your stance.

Well I think this thread got rather hung up on Firewatch, but I feel like the entire thread could hinge on Bioshock instead, a game which I liked. Or The Witness, which I loved. Or Gone Home. Or Oxenfree. Or any number of other titles. No Man's Sky, even. It seems like, nowadays, the way to garner the most pre-release attention is to cast your game in the light of mystery and be vague about everything up until the point of release.

I'll just go back to that borrowed line from my first post in this thread: "The ideal mystery is one you would read even if the end is missing."

Yes, mystery and vagueness are easy ways of getting attention in the current state of product marketing where 99% of things are completely known products well before they reach, market. But from a narrative perspective, that's irrelevant. If the places and events the mystery take you through were worth it, whether they were central to the plot or simply tangential settings for events to play out, that can make the overall journey worth it to people.

There are certain unwritten contracts between the consumer and creators of a story. If the creator says the story is of the mystery genre, that means it will mostly follow said genre's conventions. If the creator is going to break said contract then they have to earn it, and if they don't, should be criticized for it. Of course opinion will play into that, but general guidlines for quality still exist.

I think the real problem here, is selling a story as a mystery when it is not. Both Firewatch and Lost were sold on their mysteries (this is often mostly the publishers fault than the creator's, but it varies.) In the case of other genres it's easier to review. If something is sold as action or romance, you can just state the genre conventions that weren't actually there. In the case of a mystery, it is more difficult, since explaining the mystery in the review and why it does or doesn't work could negate the need to consume the product all together.

A story can earn a dissapointing, sad or contradictory ending, but explaining such in a review is really difficult without spoiling that that's the case. And sometimes products are made or sold to that end in an attempt to avoid or bypass the process of criticism before they have your money, (after that they don't care.)

::I haven't played Firewatch so this isn't meant as a view on it's ending::