The Pathless review: The light shines bright with this indie gem

The Pathless is about the journey, offering a true sense of openness and freedom while exploring this mythical land at your own leisure.

Title: The Pathless
Developer: Giant Squid
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Platforms: PlayStation 5 (reviewed on), PlayStation 4, PC, iOS
Release Date: November 12, 2020

There’s no hard-and-fast rule as to how The Pathless should be experienced. The name itself, while serving a narrative purpose, is as much a reflection of how it is to be played — with an eagerness to explore this vast and beautiful open-world.

From the moment you, the Hunter, arrive at this mysterious island, it’s up to you to forge your own path. There are no directional markers, no set of instructions, no straightforward guides to push you towards a specific objective. The ability to soak in this extravagant land at your own pace is truly freeing.

The Pathless, if you haven’t figured it out by now, is an open-world, exploration game with light platforming and puzzle-solving elements. Its whimsical tone harkens back to the likes of Ico and RiME, or even Giant Squid’s own Abzu. But whereas those games have more of an open-ended approach to the story, The Pathless has a straightforward narrative.

The last Hunter arrives at a mysterious isle in hopes of stopping a curse and reclaiming the light before the world succumbs to darkness. The land’s godlike protectors, known as The Tall Ones, have been transformed into villainous beasts by the masked villain known only as the Godslayer, who hopes to spread darkness across the world. It’s up to you to save these beasts, defeat the Godslayer, and restore the light.

To do so, you’ll traverse this majestic land, solving puzzles to collect the seals of the Tall Ones and reactivate their monuments, effectively loosening the Godslayer’s evil grip on them and reclaiming them from the darkness. The plot, while limited to just a few exchanges, serves as an effective backdrop, providing just enough intriguing purpose to press on.

Make no mistake though, regardless of the plot, the environment itself is reason enough to want to keep going. There are four main regions to this isle, and each is rich in beauty and history just waiting to be discovered. Accompanying you on this journey is an eagle.

Exploration is made fun through the game’s unique traversal system. Your primary means of travel is a dash meter that allows you to move quickly and jump higher. As you hold it, the meter depletes but the catch is that you can replenish it while on the go by using your bow to shoot targets that are generously scattered throughout the land. With your eagle, you can also soar and glide through the sky. As you hone your skills, you’ll be able to pull off some pretty sick traversal moves and reach difficult parts of the island.

There is no waypoint or fast-travel system. To have one would simply detract from what makes The Pathless so special.

But there’s more to The Pathless than simply exploration. You’re trying to free this land of the darkness. And to do so, you’ll need to free The Tall Ones. As I previously mentioned, to do this, you need to collect their seals that are scattered throughout the land. In each area are three tall obelisks that must be freed from the Godslayer.

There are no guides or markers telling you where to go for the seals; however, you do have the option of activating a headband that provides a special vision and highlights areas of interest. Whether you choose to use this headband or not, it’s still pretty easy to discover a lot of the puzzles within the environment. Some are highlighted with a red glow, while others are more subtle, hidden behind fake walls that can only be discovered by using this special vision. Others you’ll simply stumble upon out of sheer exploration curiosity. I found one seal by climbing a really giant tree to see where it would lead.

The puzzles will make you think, but they aren’t too difficult. They typically require you to pull some levers, adjust mirrors, move boxes, or light torches using your bow and arrow. In some situations, you’ll have to direct your eagle to perform a specific task, like picking up a box and dropping it on a button to help lower a gate. It reminds me of The Last Guardian but not as clunky.

In addition to seal puzzles, there are also environmental puzzles that can be solved to earn experience points. This experience is used to upgrade your relationship with your eagle and unlock additional jumps (to reach higher locations).

For the most part, The Pathless allows you to solve these puzzles at your own pace. However, there is always the threat of the looming red storm. This spreads across the map slowly and every now and then you’ll be sucked into it. It serves to break up the potential monotony, providing brief segments of stealth gameplay where you must avoid the land’s corrupted god and reach your downed eagle without being spotted. Getting caught isn’t the end as you’ll only lose some experience points. I found these sequences to be more of a nuisance than anything.

After collecting enough seals to free the obelisk, you’ll engage in a boss battle with that area’s corrupted animal deity. These multi-phased battles usually consist of racing through the environment, dodging projectiles and shooting at the boss’s weak points. These engagements are as close to actual combat as you’ll get in The Pathless and while they aren’t particularly difficult, they offer some of the game’s most intense moments.

The game is pretty forgiving when it comes to combat. You never really “die” in a traditional sense. You just lose some stamina and the phase seamlessly resets, so you’ll never really encounter a “game over” screen, which is quite refreshing.

The Pathless, for the most part, is a tranquil experience. It provides the necessary space needed to soak in these vast, breathtaking environments. At the same time, the puzzle-solving elements and light combat segments provide enough variety to prevent the game from becoming stale.

A copy of this game was provided to App Trigger for the purpose of this review. All scores are ranked out of 10, with .5 increments. Click here to learn more about our Review Policy.