With Firewatch, Olly Moss Brings His Subversive Touch to Video Games

In the past six years, Olly Moss, a twenty-nine-year-old self-taught graphic designer and illustrator from Hampshire, in the south of England, has become known for his stylish reinterpretations of classic film posters. He has a better hit rate than Hollywood’s artists, delivering iconic imagery in reliable (and, lately, highly collectible) servings, and perhaps as a result, his aesthetic—narrowly defined palettes, gracile typography, striking composition—has grown familiar enough to parody. Now, for the first time, Moss has brought his eye to interactive entertainment, with a video game called Firewatch, which débuted on Tuesday. “I’m nervous about the launch,” he told me, earlier this week. “I think we made a good thing, but I think we also made a strange thing.”