The Pathless instantly lives up to its name by taking you to an island
full of tall mountains, dense forests, open fields, and crumbling ruins,
beckoning you to explore with a bow and bird.
Similar to the majestically serene Abzu, also from developer Giant Squid,
you can follow clues to move the narrative along
or take in the scenery while uncovering secrets.
The style and scale of the map are impressive, but how much is there to see
when you look past the soaring and shooting?
As a mortal archer, you travel to these lands to restore light to the darkness,
spread by an evil presence known as the Godslayer.
He has twisted and taken command of four giant beasts,
and you have to restore them to their original forms.
You accomplish this by solving puzzles to collect emblems,
placing the emblems within a set of obelisks,
and then chasing and battling the beasts once they’re exposed.
The occasional piles of skeletal remains offer a bit of backstory as voices echo from beyond the grave,
and a handful of animal types roam the fertile countryside.
There are numerous references to the past,
but most of these thoughts merely speak of the Godslayer’s terrifying power,
and the various locations you search
don’t create a convincing impression that this is a place where people used to live.
Regardless of the context given, your surroundings are absolutely stunning.
There are five regions separated by spiraling columns of wind that carry you upward.
There are no loading barriers outside of when the game switches to a boss fight
or stealth section, so you’re free to go as far and high as your weapon
and familiar can take you.
When you reach the tallest point on the island,
you can float all the way back down to where you originally started.
This unrestrained exploration is the most impressive part of the game’s design,
and it’s incredibly liberating to identify a point of interest and coast straight to it.
Along with an uninterrupted glide
that can carry you great distances at a gradual descent,
your eagle can also flap its wings to propel you upward.
These boosts draw from a collection of feathers that quickly regenerate
whenever your feet are back on the ground.
You earn more feathers by conquering each boss or by filling up a meter with a golden currency
that’s earned from completing puzzles.
While it’s convenient to quickly gain altitude, maxing out your feather count isn’t required
to reach the final plateau and face the Godslayer.
In fact, the feathers can be a bit rigid and clunky in practice, and it can feel almost like cheating
as they enable you to easily bypass routes that require a bit more finesse.
They make navigating the world faster, but they do take time to earn,
so it balances out either way.
Each tortured beast also inhabits this same valley, traveling within a violent storm cloud
that can suddenly change position and sneak up on you.
When you’re trapped inside the storm, your eagle is incapacitated,
and you’re forced to sneak around to recover it,
while avoiding the powerful gaze of the beast.
The presence of the storms is intimidating, but if you’re careful, you can avoid them entirely.
As its name implies, The Pathless features no mini-map or world map to analyze.
You find your way around by using a visor to switch to a dreamlike perspective
that helps you see in the dark, reveals hidden passages,
and highlights areas you haven’t completed with a red patch of fog.
Along with your eagle’s abilities, you gain height and speed
by shooting scattered markers that often guide you to new places
or allow you to surf the grassy terrain at high velocity.
Along with the standard markers, there are orange versions that grant more speed,
and blue ones that lift you higher.
You shoot a lot of arrows in The Pathless to solve puzzles, fight bosses,
and sprint wherever you want to go, but precision isn’t always required.
Shots are often generously swayed toward their intended targets,
and when following a chain of markers,
especially upward, you’re typically shooting things that aren’t even on screen yet.
You also auto-lock-on to things you need to shoot, which can get frustrating
when you need to aim at something specific to solve a puzzle
where lots of movement is involved and every second counts.
So mastery of the bow relies more on timing than accuracy,
which fits the game’s flow but feels odd for an experience so tailored to projectile combat.
The quest takes around 8 to 10 hours to complete,
depending on how many bonus flaps you want to unlock.
When it’s all over, the thing that stands out the most is the gorgeous environment
you get to explore at your own pace.
After each beast is cured, their region is replenished as well,
and you’re free to continue digging for more puzzles.
Your relationship to the eagle also leaves quite an impression, and not just for its role in the story.
You encounter zones where the eagle becomes tainted and can’t fly,
and when this happens, you have to manually remove this negative energy by petting the eagle
before you can take off again.
The act helps forge a bond between the two of you that elicits an emotional resonance
that the game can sometimes lack.
The Pathless is beautiful but repetitive.
There is a somber emptiness to its world
that tries to convey a sense of loss and impending doom,
but it can also make the proceedings tiring
if you don’t regularly redirect yourself toward the things you need to find and fix.
It makes bold strides in exploration and world-building,
but movement can feel awkward or overly simplistic,
and the ruins you seek out house little more than a puzzle and some foggy memories.
On a positive note, load times are wonderfully brief on PlayStation 5,
and the controller pulses differently for each type of target you fire at.
Navigating this world can be both a calming and thrilling experience,
there’s just not enough to find to make the journey more
than a pleasant trip through the trees.
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