ICARUS' BEAUTIFULLY DESTRUCTIVE FIRES

A bright spot of chaos in my crafty travels.

- Lauren Morton

After a tense night hunting wolves in the forests of Icarus, a friend and I trek back to our small wooden cabin. The dull orange glow of our campfire in the distance is our target, growing steadily larger as we get closer. It grows too large. That’s not a campfire. “Is that our home base?” my friend asks. “Our home base is on fire!” We sprint there, finding our third friend casually chopping trees not even 50 feet away, totally unaware of the conflagration behind him. We do our best to smack the flames off the walls with the fire whackers we’d crafted. In the end, it’s too late. Flames spread to every one of the walls we’ve built, and our wooden base burns to the ground. Again.

My favorite part of exploring a new survival game is finding out just how reactive its world is. Icarus has dangerous wildlife, the constant threat of starvation, oxygen deprivation, and more, but what brings me the most joy is the ever-present threat of accidental arson.

The first clue that fire would be my group’s main nemesis in Icarus came on our first night. With no bedrolls, we took our axes into the forest to cut trees by torchlight. Without the ability to dual-wield tools, we chucked our torches on the ground while we chopped. That’s when we found out that standing on top of a torch would set us on fire— and that running for the nearest body of water would put us out.