Video game studio Campo Santo and independent film production company Good Universe are joining forces to turn Campo Santo’s hit game Firewatch into a movie, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The film will be the first of a series of projects the two companies hope to produce collaboratively. Campo Santo founder Sean Vanaman said, “It’s rare you meet another group that shares so many of your values and makes the process of creating things even more exciting,” while Good Universe’s co-founder Joe Drake praised Campo Santo’s “utterly beguiling storytelling and amazing creative instincts.”

Firewatch, which tells the story of a firewatcher in the fictional Shoshone National Forest in the summer of 1989, was widely praised for its emotional depth and innovative design, drawing from the text adventures of the period as well as more modern game technology. Mad Men’s Rich Sommer played the lead, while video game veteran Cissy Jones voiced Delilah, the unseen firewatcher stationed at another tower that Henry forms a tenuous friendship with. Campo Santo has long taken things in unexpected directions—its company newsletter is a literary quarterly that publishes long reads on topics like the town where Pocahontas is buried (full disclosure: I’m friendly with editor Duncan Fyfe)—and it will be interesting to see if it can bring something new to the staid film development.

The history of film adaptations of video games is not littered with successes, but Campo Santo’s story of an emotionally wounded firewatcher escaping to the wilderness to avoid dealing with his problems seems like a promising place to start. Firewatch’s appeal came as much from Olly Moss’ art, which drew smartly from vintage National Parks posters, as it did the story and characters, which may put a live-action film at a disadvantage. But one thing is certain: It beats the hell out of space marines!