This article originally ran under a different banner/website in December of 2020 and is now being here re-uploaded for purposes of convenience and consolidation. Please enjoy.
MY LOYAL FOLLOWERS!!! LEND ME YOUR EARS!!! I know many of you are enraptured in the world of Night City. The lights, the sounds, and the endless technological advances. All this designed to arrest your imagination, but I must remind you, there is a world outside of Night City. A world consisting of smaller indie games worthy of your attention, and I am here to champion one of those games: The Pathless. So, please cast aside your dreams of conquering Night City, remove your cybernetic implants, and allow me, the Video Game Doomsayer, to tell my tale of a small indie game that is unjustly flying under the radar.
We play as the aerobatic female heroine known as the Hunter. She has come to the remote island to determine what curse has befallen it, causing many of her people to never return from it. She soon discovered the deities that her people once worshipped have fallen and been corrupted by a villain known as the Godslayer. With the Eagle Mother’s last gasp, she charges a young eagle with guiding the Hunter to the top of the mountain to slay the Godslayer. To reach the Godslayer, you must first defeat and cleanse the corruption from the Eagle Mother’s children. You get the sense that The Pathless is telling a myth from one of the many Native American tribes, but the developers, Giant Squid, have said The Pathless is not inspired by one mythical tale. Giant Squid has pulled aspects from the Inca, Mayan, and Aztec cultures to tell this story. Now, I certainly applaud them for crafting their own mythos, but I do hope more developers tell more tales inspired by Native American folklore.
What initially drew me to The Pathless was the movement system highlighted in a trailer for the game. As many of my loyal followers know if you give me the ability to dash, flip, or soar around your world, I will be drawn to your game like a moth to a flame. As you arrive on the mysterious island, we will see some talismans floating on the island. Shooting the talisman fills up your stamina meter, which allows you to sprint. Shooting at a talisman while sprinting will cause the Hunter to gracefully slide along the ground. You will soon begin to continuously shoot talismans as you’re sliding along the ground causing you to gain speed and momentum. Shooting a talisman while jumping in the air will also cause the Hunter to perform this acrobatic leap through the air, allowing you to chain together multiple shots to keep you airborne. You can also call upon your eagle buddy to help you glide through the air like a parasail. This movement system allows for so much aerobatic creativity and expression, that I cannot wait for this game to get into the hands of speedrunners.
The balletic movement system is pivotal to The Pathless as the Eagle Mother’s children inhabit huge biomes that you must navigate. You must traverse sweeping valleys and towering mountains encasing these zones as a peaceful soundtrack joins you on your journey. You are tasked with navigating these zones to find three towers that you must activate to weaken the corrupted deities. To activate these towers you must search for tokens scattered across the land. Now, my eyes would be rolling around in my skull at the thought of combining another open-world from the likes of Ubisoft, but with being able to speed through the zones with some well placed shots, I felt like I was playing Spider-Man rather than something like Assassin’s Creed. My one complaint about the open-world nature is even though the zones are uniquely designed, it would have been nice to see some more life within them. There is some wildlife roaming around, but you can’t interact with them, making the world feel rather empty. Now, that might have been the point. These lands have been ravaged by the now feral deities, but you can still capture that same feeling with villagers who are frightened or gone mad. Just a small choice, I would have gone with.
As you wander through the endless ruins, you will often find the tokens needed to activate the towers locked behind ancient devices creating an almost Tomb Raider-like puzzle. You will frequently find yourself shooting through fires to light other torches, shooting arrows through rings, using your eagle to lift weights and place them on switches, and using mirrors to bank shots around 90-degree angles. There are more of these puzzles than tokens needed so you are always welcomed to move onto another puzzle if one is giving you trouble. Now, I am aware none of what I am saying is new when it comes to puzzle design. These puzzles will surely feel familiar to fans of third-person action games, but they felt like a calm reprieve from all the aerobatic stunts.
What I don’t find to be a nice reprieve is the red light green light game The Pathless will sometimes throw at you. Naturally, the corrupt deities do not want to be taken down by a mere mortal so they will roam the lands looking for you. A large red storm will engulf them and begin pulling you in as they close in. Once inside the storm, you will be separated from your eagle and must get back to them while avoiding the gaze of the corrupted deity. You would assume that requires you to hide behind debris to avoid the gaze, but frequently there isn’t enough debris to allow this. Since the deities’ vision is based on movement, it creates this red light green light style gameplay that is frequently too slow. The good news is since the storm is so large, you can easily see where it is coming from and quickly can avoid it. Also when you do make it out of the storm, you have to pet your eagle to get the soot off of him and he will nuzzle up to you to show his appreciation.
Once, you have finally activated the three towers, the storm containing the corrupted deities will congregate in the middle of the zone. You must jump into the storm and earn your title of Hunter. Using the talisman, you must give chase down the deities as they race across the zone. The drums and horns of the orchestral music will start the pick up signaling the hunt has begun. When you are in range, eyes along the deity’s body will appear that you must shoot. However, the deity will not go down without a fight. After shooting two of the eyes, the deity will start launching fireballs at you requiring you to skillfully dodge out of the way to avoid falling behind. Every time, I gave chase to these monstrosities, I was able to understand what people mean by the thrill of the hunt. To be able to keep pace with these deities and skillfully take them down was exhilarating. Once you shoot all the eyes, the deity will take off for a nearby arena for a classic boss fight.
Once you have entered the arena, you begin to engage in some brilliant third-person boss fights. I frequently feel like the art of excellent boss designs has been lost to time, but The Pathless has renewed my faith. Each fight has multiple phases that completely mix up the fight each time. One minute you will be dodging fire raining down like a bullet hell shooter and the next you will be trying to avoid waves of fire in a 2D scrolling fashion. Out of all the games this year has to offer, I feel the only bosses close to revealing the ones in The Pathless have to be the ones in Doom Eternal which is certainly saying something.
Now, many people have stated that fans of the artist walking simulators like Journey or Gris will be the ones to enjoy this game. Now I will not disagree with that statement as The Pathless beautiful tells a story through its journey but, I think there is a broader audience who would love this game. Fans of Breath of the Wild will enjoy the exploration of the various biomes. Speedrunners or people who enjoy reaching high speeds in games will enjoy trying to reach unimaginable speeds. Finally, people longing for exhilarating boss fights from the PS2 era will love taking on these corrupted deities. There is so much to love within this title, I don’t think this is a game to pass up. If you are looking for a break from your futuristic nightlife, I think you couldn’t go wrong with The Pathless.
Source:
Beresford, T. (2020, November 13). The Independent Gamer: Studio Behind ‘Abzu’ Launches Mythical Adventure. The Hollywood Reporter. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/the-independent-gamer-studio-behind-abzu-launches-mythical-adventure.