SUMMER IS HERE, and with it a special summer issue of the Campo Santo Quarterly Review. Summer is for going to the beach, fancy cocktails, and building a hot summer body, and by bringing together video game development and literary journals written by corporate Ombudsmen, I think we have a celebration of summer that would please even the great sun god Ra.

For Campo Santo, the summer has been busy, if low profile. The team has expanded, with the additions of engineer Patrick Ewing, programmer Paolo Surricchio and, working remotely from London, animator James Benson. Campo Santo has people in four cities now: San Francisco, Vancouver, London and Winchester, and the pattern that forms when you plot those disparate locations on a map is probably something to keep an eye on, for sure.

Jake Rodkin, Campo Santo’s co-founder, told me that much of the team’s recent focus has been on putting together a trailer for its first game, Firewatch. When the trailer is shown at the end of August, it’ll be the most that the company has revealed of the game to date.

“I am equal parts excited and anxious,” Mr Rodkin said to me. “We told people in March that we were making the game. That felt like something, but really we didn't say much. We didn't actually say anything at all, other than there is a game called Firewatch and it has a very pretty website. What the game actually IS -- what it looks like, what you even DO in it moment to moment -- we haven't shared with people; nobody knows.”

Making a good first impression is important work, but not the only thing that the team has been up to this summer. Chris Remo and his girlfriend Sarah made plas to go to Disneyland. Jane Ng was drawn into a historic mystery of wolves and fire. You can read about the latter incident in this issue, as well as an examination of Firewatch writer Sean Vanaman, who talks about his process and reckons with his very nature.

There’s even more in this globetrotting summer instalment of the Quarterly Review: the coronation of a princess, piracy and bull fights, a lost generation, and tales of seduction, arson, manslaughter, attempted murder, and murder.

Have a great summer, everyone. Hail Ra!

Duncan Fyfe London, England August 2014